On a slow summer Sunday in July 2023, meteorologists and state officials began to issue dire warnings about a storm headed for Vermont later that day. VTDigger editors scrambled to publish a story declaring that the state could face “catastrophic, life-threatening flooding.” The piece, eventually read by more than 80,000 people, would become one of the earliest and clearest warnings of the disaster to come.
As 3 to 9 inches of rain inundated the state in the following days, VTDigger journalists reported on the ground from every corner of Vermont — reaching isolated mountain towns at times on foot. In the first week of the storm and recovery, reporters filed from 30 different municipalities. They documented the storm’s human toll in real time: a river tearing through a manufactured home community in Ludlow, a National Guard helicopter pulling people from a residence in Berlin, a rockslide covering the car of a stranded homeowner in Jamaica.
As the rain tapered off, Vermont’s main-stem rivers continued to rise, submerging major municipalities, such as the bustling capital of Montpelier and the working-class enclave of Barre. VTDigger’s 15 reporters, seven editors and one photographer — some stranded in these very places — closely covered the peril posed by aging and overwhelmed dams that threatened to further flood population centers.
Over the following weeks, VTDigger followed the storm’s impacts on farmers, small business owners, unhoused Vermonters and immigrants — making use of reader submissions to engage with community members — and provided critical health, safety and financial information to those rebuilding their lives and livelihoods. The outlet stood up a rapid-response newsletter process that included breaking-news emails and nightly flood recaps.
At the same time, VTDigger turned to bigger questions: What role did climate change play in the disaster? How could historic downtowns built on the banks of overflowing rivers adapt? How could Vermont better protect the most vulnerable?
Throughout the storm and recovery, VTDigger became the go-to source for Vermonters seeking lifesaving information about the storm devastating their state.
On the first full day of the storm, VTDigger published 29 original news stories on it — more than the site typically prints in a week. In the first week of the disaster, it published 116 flood stories, and in the first month, 214.
