just hung up with my niece who is doing an internship with a mountain club in VT. they had to be emergency rescued yesterday and their base camp is completely destroyed, washed away. they are awaiting direction from state officials for their crews... their original work was simple trail repair/rebuilding but most of the trails are now basically destroyed. this is absolutely record setting flooding and devastation. they've been doing backwoods work with crews of volunteers but most of the volunteers have had to leave bc their own homes/towns are flooded.
she is terribly dispirited if not completely depressed (which is very scary for her in a much broader sense, i.e. she's already got issues). she said the damage is just horrible.
she said they have had about 6 days of no rain since she got there end of May, so this storm just dumped incredible amounts on already completely saturated earth.
i don't know if she's going to stick it out...i certainly can't blame her for wanting to throw in the towel, her mental health is paramount. she'll figure it out... she said it's like fighting the ocean or something, just completely futile and hopeless.