Montpelier Floods

Montpelier floods regularly. The last big flood was in 1992, so they are not every year, or even every decade, but they have come repeatedly. The BIG ONE was in 1927.

A stone canal has widened the Winooski River through Montpelier, making floods less frequent, but they still occur.

In early 2007, alert action by the city flood and emergency management team lessened the risk during a big flood scare. Sandbags lined the streets. State government documents were carried out of basements.

Predicting floods in Montpelier is a tricky science. The water flows are complex, running through steep mountains in countless creeks and rivers. Warm air with rain on snow makes the most water, but floods can happen under other conditions. In 2007, extreme cold froze the river top to bottom in a narrow section, creating an iceberg dam. To open the iceberg dam, the city ran water through hoses from the water treatment plant to the iceberg, melting a channel through the berg. A huge rush of water, say from a warm rain, could have overwhelmed the narrow channel, but fortunately, Mother Nature was gentle, bringing the water at a good rate to melt the iceberg dam, but not so fast as to flood the city.