Flood Zones in Washington County, Vermont

July 2023: a 21-foot crest in Montpelier, and Barre's hardest hit in the state

Between July 7 and July 21, 2023, heavy, sustained rainfall drove rivers across Vermont to near-record levels. In Montpelier, the Winooski River crested at 21 feet -- a level not reached since the 1920s -- flooding much of the downtown, closing streets and businesses for weeks, and requiring the rescue of over 100 people from flooded vehicles and buildings. President Biden declared a Major Disaster for Vermont on July 14, 2023 (FEMA designation DR-4720), making federal individual and public-assistance funding available; Washington County was one of the counties named in that declaration.

Barre City, sitting downstream in the same Winooski watershed, was hit even harder in relative terms: state officials and multiple contemporaneous news accounts describe Barre as the hardest-hit municipality in Vermont from the 2023 flooding, with damage estimated to about 10% of the city's total housing stock. Floodwaters reached chest-deep in parts of the city's North End neighborhood, wiping out basements and first floors of downtown apartment buildings and prompting serious, still-ongoing discussion among city officials about whether some of the hardest-hit blocks should be converted to green space rather than rebuilt in place.

July 2024: a second major flood, and a second federal disaster declaration

Vermont did not get a recovery year before the next one hit. In July 2024, the state experienced another major flooding event, generating a separate FEMA major-disaster declaration, DR-4810, distinct from 2023's DR-4720. Both disaster designations are still actively generating Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) projects as of this writing, run through Vermont Emergency Management (VEM) -- meaning Washington County land near the Winooski corridor has now been the subject of two consecutive years of federally declared flood disasters and two separate, still-open federal mitigation funding streams, not a single historical event to treat as a one-off.

A real, active buyout program -- and Vermont's own River Corridor regulatory layer

In response, the State of Vermont, through VEM, has run a voluntary property acquisition (buyout) program using FEMA hazard-mitigation funds, aimed at flood-damaged and flood-vulnerable properties statewide. A VEM project document dated February 14, 2025 put the program's current property list at 85, with the state anticipating it could grow past 100 as additional properties receive FEMA awards. Montpelier's own City Council has specifically and unanimously approved applying to acquire flood-damaged homes at 189 State Street, 197 State Street, and 127 Elm Street using this funding. If a specific Montpelier or Barre property you're considering was flood-damaged in 2023 or 2024, it's worth asking directly whether it's part of, or eligible for, this buyout list -- a pending acquisition changes the calculus on any purchase or rebuild plan substantially.

Separately from FEMA's ordinary National Flood Insurance Program floodplain mapping, Vermont layers on its own statewide regulatory tool: the Flood Hazard Area and River Corridor (FHA&RC) Rule, effective since March 1, 2015 and administered by the Vermont DEC. River corridors are mapped areas around a river's channel where fluvial erosion, channel evolution, and down-valley meander migration are most likely to occur over time -- a different, geomorphology-based concept from FEMA's inundation-based floodplain, and one that can restrict development even outside the mapped FEMA floodplain if the parcel sits inside the river corridor. The rule sets a "no adverse impact" standard for new development inside a mapped river corridor (with some allowance for infill and redevelopment), and Vermont's River Corridor maps are used both for state permit review and for Act 250 and Section 248 (utility) project review. A Winooski River corridor parcel in Montpelier or Barre should be checked against both maps -- FEMA's floodplain and Vermont's river corridor -- since either one, independently, can trigger a permit requirement or development restriction.

What to check before buying a Montpelier- or Barre-area parcel

1. Pull FEMA's current flood-zone (Special Flood Hazard Area) map for the specific parcel -- Montpelier's own city government maintains a flood guide and resources for residents and prospective buyers.
2. Separately, check the parcel against Vermont's River Corridor map on the state's Natural Resources Atlas -- a parcel outside the FEMA floodplain can still sit inside the mapped river corridor and be subject to the state's own permit rule.
3. If the property was damaged in the 2023 or 2024 floods, ask directly whether it's part of, or under consideration for, Vermont Emergency Management's voluntary buyout program before assuming a straightforward rebuild is the likely path.
4. Confirm current flood insurance availability and likely premium for the specific parcel -- properties with two recent, federally declared flood losses in the same watershed are a materially different insurance underwriting case than an otherwise-similar property with no flood history.
5. For any new construction or substantial improvement in a mapped flood hazard area or river corridor, confirm both the town's own flood-hazard zoning provisions and whether a separate Vermont DEC river-corridor or floodplain permit is required in addition to the town permit.