A year after floods destroyed roads across New Hampshire, damage that threatened buildings in the town of Acworth has been repaired.
The journey to recovery for the 850-person town, which saw 32 roads damaged in major storms two years apart, has been a long one. And it isn’t over. The town still has projects ongoing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 2021, and is just beginning others for repairs from the 2023 storms.
But for one strip of land next to a church and a community center, things look almost as they did before the floods came last summer.
“Aside from being what it needs to be, it’s also beautiful,” said Kathi Bradt, a member of the Acworth Selectboard. “The contractor actually donated pieces of work toward the end of the project so that the streetscape of the village was restored.”
Last July, floodwaters overwhelmed Bowers Brook, which runs alongside a main thoroughfare in Acworth. The brook jumped its banks and charted a new path, flowing underneath a church and a community center across from the Acworth Village Store.
The water began to undermine the foundation of the buildings. Residents worried that if the brook wasn’t routed back to its original location, it would ruin those structures and threaten the road, the store, and a nearby bridge.
Bradt says the most difficult part of the project was getting state officials to understand the scale of damage the town was experiencing and sign on to help. But after a community petition, state agencies helped Acworth leaders apply for federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and design a restoration project.
“I thought this was such a great model for local talent, local government and state government being able to work together,” Bradt said.
But, she said, the town is also making long-term plans for the restoration, which could allow ongoing work if floodwaters threaten the buildings again.
“This isn’t the last flood we’re going to have,” she said. “I think we’re looking at ways to be more resilient and to be more prepared for future events in this changing weather we’re having.”
Climate change is making rain and flooding more intense in New Hampshire, and officials in small towns across the state are scrambling to address disasters as they happen and prepare for those to come.
Federal help, which often comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, can be slow. The town took out a $2 million bond to pay for repairs upfront while waiting for federal reimbursements.
The agency has used a new approach in recent months: employing one point person for Acworth, instead of asking local leadership to coordinate with multiple people. It’s a pilot program for now, Bradt said, but it’s made a big difference.
“We have already started to see some reimbursement for 2023,” she said. “If you use 2021 as a timeline to judge, that’s a miracle.”
