President Biden is at the NATO summit in Europe, but he wasted no time today declaring the state of Vermont a federal disaster area after their heavy rains and flooding. Good thing, too, because everyone's keeping their eyes on the Wrightsville Dam near Montpelier — it's just a foot away from spilling over.
Some context for you: We got maybe one or two inches of rain in our corner of Upstate New York, and we're still pretty soggy. But the town of Barre, Vermont, just southeast of Montpelier, got five to 10! It's no wonder that Alexis Dexter, the owner of the Kitty Korner Cafe in downtown Barre, became frantic when she saw the water rising up.
Knowing that getting her 50 (yep, 50) cats out of the cafe would be impossible, she refused to evacuate. Instead, she moved the cats to higher ground inside and then broke a hole in her cafe floor to direct the flood to her basement. It worked! After coming super-close to the top of the basement stairs, the water stopped — and when the power came back on, the sump pumps went to work. Whew!
Alexis Dexter sustained a lot of damage to her business, but surely the Kitty Korner Cafe will rise again. When Vermont recovers from this climate-change-exacerbated disaster, Alexis and her cats will be the first folks we'll visit. That's a promise. We cats PURR.
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