“The night the river jumped its banks, everything changed.”
—Ellen Leventhal, A Flood of Kindness, a children’s book about living through a flood
Half a mile downhill from our home in Essex, Vermont, there is a farm stand on the edge of the Winooski River where fertile riverbank soil nourishes fields of berries. In the summer, you can pick your own: the strawberries ripen first, then the raspberries and blueberries. Last July, on a day of heavy smoke from Canadian wildfires, my husband, children, and I donned masks and went to the farm stand with high hopes, smoke be damned. Raspberries were picked, eaten, became tiny hats for seven-year-old fingers. In a photo of us in the fields that day, my son is holding out a cardboard carton overflowing with berries: it is a photo that almost feels like an idyllic summer vignette, except for the neon green mask he’s wearing to protect his lungs from Code Red air.
What we did not know at the time was that a week later, the field we were standing in would be eight feet underwater. In a storm that would come to be known as the Great Vermont Flood of 2023, the Winooski River and rivers throughout the state jumped their banks, flooding farm fields, roads, homes, businesses, and much of downtown Montpelier. The National Weather Service issued the first Flash Flood Emergency for anywhere in northern New England. By July 14, over 200 swift water rescues had been performed across the state. The flooding also affected New York, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, causing over $2 billion in damage across the region; multiple people died.
And all the remaining berry crops at the farm stand near our home were destroyed.
TELL CONGRESS: SUPPORT MENTAL WELLNESS RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITIES HIT BY CLIMATE DISASTER
How flood events impact mental health
Floods are the most frequent type of natural disaster in the United States, generally caused by heavy rainfall, snowmelt, storm surge, and increasingly, sea-level rise. In addition to worsening sea-level rise, climate change is also affecting the frequency and intensity of precipitation, making flood events more likely.
Floods can have a profound impact on mental health. Experiencing a flood event has been linked with an increased risk of anxiety disorders, symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, substance abuse, higher risk of domestic violence, and exacerbation of existing mental health challenges. Like other disasters, floods are also linked with deeply personal losses that can mean grief and even the loss of a sense of identity: in the weeks following the Vermont flooding, stories unfolded of lost family photos, missing livestock and pets, small family businesses destroyed, and other irreplaceable belongings damaged by floodwaters. The mental health effects of a flood event are widespread and can linger for years. According to the American Psychiatric Association, the number of people who experience mental health impacts after a disaster often outnumbers those physically injured by a staggering 40 to 1.
Who is most vulnerable?
Children are especially vulnerable to the mental health impacts of floods and other disasters. They may be deeply frightened when they don’t know what’s happening during a flood event, scared when they have to evacuate, and dismayed by the loss of personal belongings. Children are also vulnerable because of their dependence on adult caregivers who are also experiencing intense stress: “Parents’ wellbeing,” one study on the mental health impacts of flooding asserted, “affects the quality of their parenting.” When parents’ mental health suffers because of disaster stress, this can affect children’s ability to cope too.
Across the country, floods also disproportionately impact communities of color. According to a 2022 study, the risk of flooding in Black U.S. neighborhoods is predicted to rise by at least 20% by 2050, echoing other research showing a greater flood threat for communities of color. When floods and other disasters strike, people of color often receive far less disaster aid from FEMA than do white disaster survivors, compounding the stress of recovery and associated mental health impacts.
Community resilience after the flood
Distress and resilience in the wake of a disaster are not mutually exclusive. Most people who experience flooding, research suggests, are remarkably resilient and can cope with the support of loved ones and fellow community members.
Vermont’s resilience in the wake of the Great Flood has been humbling to witness at close range. For every story of a damaged home, there have been more stories of neighbors jumping in to help each other pump mud out of basements, distribute clean water and food, and haul away debris. A friend of mine coordinated her small town’s relief efforts, creating a spreadsheet to track who needed help and who could offer it—the offers, she told me, always outweighed the need. Businesses suffered, but communities pulled together to help them rebuild and reopen as quickly as possible.
And although the mental health impacts of the flooding were immense, mental health was a central part of the post-flood conversation in Vermont from early on. The state put forth a robust set of resources to help citizens cope and recover emotionally. In May, Congresswoman Becca Balint (VT) introduced the Mental Health Emergency Needs in Disasters (MEND) Act, a piece of bipartisan federal legislation that establishes a FEMA grant program to deploy mobile mental health crisis teams in the wake of major disasters.
A bitter anniversary
Heartbreakingly, on the exact one-year anniversary of the floods, Vermont has experienced major flooding again. Montpelier had planned to acknowledge the anniversary of the flooding with a “Flood the Streets with Art” event, gathering artists and community members to create temporary chalk art installations in the streets of downtown; that celebration has been postponed. As I write this, friends are stranded in their homes by flooded roads, and the farm stand at the end of our road is closed due to standing water. It looks like this year’s remaining berry crops have been destroyed again.
An Adrienne Rich quote comes to mind for moments like these: “There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.” Many in Vermont are weeping again today, myself included. But I have no doubt that the strength of community here will be stronger, yet again, than the floodwaters.
May all of us impacted by extreme weather this summer have a community to grieve with—and then, may we find the strength of warriors to take urgently needed climate action.
Learn about Moms’ work on mental health and extreme weather.
TELL CONGRESS: SUPPORT MENTAL WELLNESS RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITIES HIT BY CLIMATE DISASTER