Storm Teaches
Two Lessons
By M. D. Drysdale

Tom and Alicia Ferguson of Brookfield learned a lesson about Vermont weather last weekend—and a much more important lesson about Vermont neighbors.

The Fergusons, originally from New York City, two years ago bought the stately 1795 former stagecoach stop on East Street. They were out of town and out of touch Saturday when the storm struck. They knew nothing about it until they returned home Sunday night and found total havoc in their front yard.

The driveway was missing—altogether covered by a tangle of limbs and branches. So was the car that had been in the driveway. The entire front yard was nothing but downed trees.

Reconstructing the scene on Tuesday, Alicia Ferguson said they lost four complete trees and a huge limb from another. In fact, the damage was so severe that she had a hard time remembering exactly what the yard had been like.

"It was a war zone," she said.

"Maybe there was another tree here?" she asked, pointing to a spot.

The Suburu Outback, though it had been covered with branches, appears to have escaped with a few roof dents, but she hasn’t tried to drive it yet.

It was what happened next, however, that really astounded Alicia and her husband.

"The really incredible part was the outpouring of generosity from the neighbors," she said Tuesday. "They came with trucks and flatbeds, chainsaws, and tractors."

By Tuesday afternoon, the rubble had mainly been reduced to a few neat piles of firewood.

"We haven’t been here but two years," Alicia marveled. "It was a real neighbor experience that we never knew existed, something that you could only dream about."

The crew of six or eight neighbors spent all day Monday cleaning up—and having a good time at it, too, she said, singing and joking.

"This is like Utopia," she said of her Vermont home.