One person has died as flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl sweeps Vermont, Gov. Phil Scott announced Thursday.
Vermont State Police identified the man as Dylan Kempton, 33, of Peacham, and said he died late Wednesday during heavy rain and flash flooding in the area.
Police were called about 10:35 p.m. for a report that a car had fallen into South Peacham Brook. They found that the driver of the car had been rescued unharmed, but they discovered an overturned UTV in the water.
Just before midnight, they found a man dead downstream, and they recovered Kempton's body early Thursday, police said.
Police determined a breached culvert sent water rushing over the road, sweeping away Kempton and the UTV he had been driving home.
In addition to the death, heavy rainfall that began Wednesday night caused power outages, road and bridge closures, evacuations and damage to homes and properties, Scott said at a news conference Thursday.
The flooding damage is "extensive," the state emergency management division said in an update Thursday, with significant damage in central Vermont and in some counties east and west.
Overnight, the primary hazard was flash flooding and some river flooding, officials said, but the flash flooding had mostly been resolved by the news conference Thursday.
River flooding was expected to wind down throughout Thursday except in the Winooski, Passumpsic and Lamoille rivers, all of which were supposed to crest throughout the day and into the evening.
Video of the Winooski River posted Thursday shows overwhelming floodwaters barreling downstream.
Waterways are not safe right now, officials said, adding that Vermonters should stay off the rivers, even as the weather gets hot over the next few days.
Swift water teams in the state have made 118 rescues, including 15 pets, Mike Kim, the swift water team leader, said Thursday.
Officials are still in "active response move," Jennifer Morrison, commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety, said Thursday, adding that there are still active rescues in the Lyndonville area.
Morrison said they are still carrying out secondary searches in some of the hardest-hit areas, including Mooretown, Plainfield, Lyndonville, Barre, Richmond, Bolton and Williamstown.
At the time of the news conference Thursday, Joe Flynn of the state Transportation Department said 54 state roads were closed. The number did not include all affected local roads.
Flynn said that six bridges were "impinged" and that three were destroyed or severely affected.
The flooding comes exactly one year after major flooding in the state on July 10-11, 2023.
Scott said it is "not lost on any of us the irony of this flooding falling on the one-year anniversary of last year’s floods."
"We're ready. Our response and tools is stronger as a result of last year. We’ll get through this," he said.
The death in Vermont brings the number of storm-related fatalities in the United States due to Beryl to 12 — with most of those occurring in Texas, where the storm made landfall Monday as a Category 1 hurricane. At least nine people also died in the Caribbean and in Venezuela.
Two of the 10 deaths in Texas were from carbon monoxide poisoning as people used generators for lack of electricity service, officials said. Another person died in Galveston County after their generator failed and batteries in an oxygen generator ran out.
In the Houston area, the storm caused millions of people to lose power, and utility CenterPoint energy says it expects to be restoring power to around 350,000 customers by the end of the day Sunday.
On Thursday, the heat index in Houston — which is what it feels like when humidity is taken into account — reached 102 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
"The storm wasn’t nothing compared to this here, 100 degrees, sitting in the house," Houston resident Timothy Campbell told NBC News on Wednesday.
Getting electricity is the top priority for Campbell and others.
"Get it back and keep it on," he said. "Because hurricane season is just beginning."
