MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Students from the University of Pennsylvania could play a role in preparing for future floods in Central Vermont. Graduate students are touring towns this week hearing about long-term recovery goals and possible strategies for the next flood.
University of Pennsylvania students spent part of Tuesday listening to Montpelier City Planner Mike Miller detail Montpelier’s flooding hot spots.
The group is in the Green Mountains as part of their class work, brainstorming climate adaptation strategies for Montpelier, Barre, and Plainfield.
“Looking at how these municipalities are connected and how they’re organized. Obviously, upstream communities and their resiliency efforts really affect downstream, so looking at how to better organize and connect the communities is a main interest to us,” said UPenn student Zach Somberg.
Montpelier is still working on flood resiliency plans for public buildings damaged in the 2023 flooding, reaching out to homeowners and business owners. “Mitigating those buildings is gonna take longer. But elevating buildings, doing buyouts — those types of efforts — that’s what the other half of our resiliency work has been,” Miller said. He says the students bring a new perspective.”It’s always good to see where people are going, what people are thinking, just bringing new eyes and new ideas to a problem. Maybe we get some new thinking to something we’ve overlooked.”
Especially ideas from those addressing infrastructure and preparing for a changing climate.
“It’s not just about immediate action — of course is important — but also how to build back towns better and stronger, and more long-lasting,” said UPenn student Miranda Ayres.
The students will work on this project until December but they say the collaboration will continue into the future.
