Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury reopened Tuesday, March 11, after being closed due to flooding on March 6, 7 and 10. This is the second major flooding event at the school in less than eight months.
Water in the school’s namesake brook rose Wednesday into Thursday morning March 6, with rain and snowmelt. The heavy flow continued to further widen a new path that the brook has carved since last summer, encroaching closer to the driveway to the school and electrical and telecommunications utility boxes beside it.
By early afternoon Thursday, cleanup crews were on site along with utility workers who had shut off power to the building. The stream was running full and fast, having breached the area where the utility boxes are located. Later in the afternoon an earth-moving contractor arrived with an excavator to do emergency mitigation measures to divert water from the boxes and stop the flow of water into the building. That work wrapped up just after nightfall and power was also turned back on.
Lines from the boxes are contained in conduit buried under the driveway and running across the school grounds to the building where they enter an electrical utility room on the wing closest to the parent drop-off loop.
School officials said the leak was discovered shortly after 5 a.m. by a school staff member viewing security camera footage. Classes for the day were canceled and utility crews and cleanup contractors were called in, they said. Approximately two inches of water spread through the classroom wing near the utility room and down corridors into much of the school’s first floor. The water did not reach the school gymnasium although it did spread through the classroom portion of that wing.
MORE EXTENSIVE FLOODING
Superintendent Mike Leichliter and school principals sent a message to school staff and parents Thursday afternoon. “The flooding today was more extensive than what we experienced over the summer and includes seven classrooms on the first floor [fithth-sixth grade] wing, music rooms, the cafeteria, and the main office,” he wrote. Crossett Brook has approximately 260 students in grades five through eight.
The flooding came as the district had been preparing to start a project to alter the stream path to attempt to prevent such damage in the future. The school was heavily damaged last July when high water in the Crossett Brook spread along the stream’s path making its way to the utility boxes and then following the underground conduit into the school’s electrical room. The water damage in that incident was contained to the classrooms, bathrooms, and locker area of the fifth-and sixth-grade wing, stopping short of the music rooms and cafeteria.
The repairs from the summer damage involved replacing all flooring, cabinetry, drywall, and damaged structures such as a folding partition used to divide a large classroom into two smaller spaces. The damage costs were about $230,000 with much of that anticipated to be covered by insurance as that claim is still in progress. The repair costs the school district must cover are paid for out of contingency funds set aside for such emergencies.
Now much of that new material installed since July will be pulled up to be replaced again, explained Lisa Estler, the district’s finance and operations manager.
The school’s insurance claim adjuster was brought in on Thursday as well, she added.
School co-principals Duane Pierson and Jen Durren will be working on a plan for reopening the school once it is safe, Estler said. That likely will mean reconfiguring classroom areas so classes from the affected rooms meet upstairs until their rooms can be reoccupied. Staff from those classes will be notified when they may return to move supplies and materials to new temporary spaces, she said.
PLANS FOR A FIX
The brook’s overflow and school flooding this week comes just as the district has been anticipating work to begin on a project in and along the stream to try to mitigate flooding danger. The state has permitted the work and a contractor was looking to schedule it now, school officials said.
“While the work was scheduled, it was not able to be completed in time for the heavy rains and melting snow that we experienced today,” Leichliter’s message said.
On February 7, the school district posted online and sent a communication to families and staff about the upcoming stream project at Crossett Brook. It explained how the flooding occurred in July and the steps taken since then. “At that time, we adopted a wait and see approach. We were hoping the river would cut another channel and remain away from the infrastructure. However, during a high rain event this fall, the stream once again encroached on the infrastructure. At that time, we developed a plan to mitigate any future flooding,” the message stated.
Estler and Harwood director of facilities and operations Ray Daigle spoke with The Valley Reporter and Waterbury Roundabout on February 25 about the project which they said was expected to take about a week. Scheduling was delayed as contractor Griffin and Sons was diverted with snow removal projects, otherwise the project was intended to be done during the school break the last week of February, they said.
NOT A LONG-TERM FIX
Daigle said some preventative steps were taken after the July flood, but they were not meant to be a long-term fix. “After the July flood, we were able to have those [boxes] sealed,” he said. “The concern is, if those seals fail, we’re going to be right back where we started.”
Jaron Borg is the river management engineer with the state of Vermont. “Those boxes are in a tough spot there,” he said of the utility boxes. “This is at least the third time I’ve known those boxes to get wet.” He said he recalled another previous incident around 2016 when similar water damage occurred at the site.
Borg’s role is in the regulatory section of the Agency of Natural Resources where he was involved with reviewing plans for the school district’s project to try to prevent the stream from overflowing and encroaching on the boxes in the future.
PILOT CHANNEL
“The current proposal is to create a pilot channel for the stream to redevelop and naturalize,” he said, pointing out that the brook now is expanding into an older meadow at the same level as the boxes. The work will not prevent the equipment from being flooded in the future, he said, “but it should reduce the frequency.”
Daigle said he anticipates that high water will continue to be an issue in the spot, noting that there was some melting in December that encroached on the utility boxes. But the excavation project would help better accommodate heavier flows in the brook when that happens. He said debris that’s accumulated from recent floods would be cleared and excavation would aim to redirect the brook toward its original path. “So, when it does flow over its bank again in the spring – which we’re certain it’s going to do – it has a channel to go into rather than spreading out across the surface. And then we imagine nature will take over there and that will be its regular course – until the next huge event.”
The aim of the project, Daigle said, is to make the site better able to accommodate unavoidable high-water events. “Nature’s going to do what nature’s going to do,” he said. “Water’s going to take the path of least resistance.”
Prior to this week’s flooding, school officials said they compared the costs of moving the utility boxes and the excavation options and they decided to proceed with the site work. “When we looked at it, we found it would be costly to move all of that – to relocate the boxes and all the conduits,” Estler said.
The planned project has a price tag of $21,505. Estler said. Daigle said the district did not seek a specific quote for moving the boxes but he was certain it would be “a significant cost,” likely three to four times greater than the stream work.
Borg said the state cannot require the school district to make a different choice. “We cannot compel people to move their equipment,” he said.
However, the fact remains that the location is in a floodway. “The investment is within a mapped flood hazard area,” Borg said. “Think of it like setting up camp on a bus route – you don’t know exactly when the bus is going to come by, but you know the bus is eventually going to take your tent down.”
Green Mountain Power director of communications Kristin Kelly responded to an inquiry on Friday explaining how the company determines locations for power infrastructure.
“The school, like any customer installing a line extension and service equipment for their building, works with GMP on where the equipment on their property will be installed, whether the customer wants it to be underground or above ground,” Kelly said in an email. “For safe access and maintenance, it is good to have that equipment located near roads. This service vault is currently located next to the roadway by the school. The school would be the best to speak to their approach of redirecting the water away from the roadway.”
Prior to this week, Estler had said the district already has seen its insurance costs increase following two floods at Moretown Elementary School – in December 2023 and July 2024 – in addition to the flood damage at Crossett Brook last July as well. Damage from the summer flood in Moretown totaled over $1.4 million, Estler said, with that insurance claim still being finalized. Once the claims are completed, Estler said she would be reporting the cost totals to the school board.
