In the early morning hours of Saturday, May 10, a mudslide struck portions of the embankment adjacent to Pomfret Road, sliding down from Caper Street — which runs along the embankment — and dislocating portions of guardrail and impairing the structural integrity of the adjacent Pomfret Road embankment. During the mudslide, various debris, rock, mud, and mature trees slid further down Pomfret Road, bleeding onto Mill Brook Road.
Pomfret Road was closed for the entirety of that Saturday, with a partial reopening for emergency traffic on Sunday. Over the weekend, local road crews worked to remove debris, assess the stability of the remaining embankment, and ensure that an additional slide would be unlikely to occur. Since then, they have continued working to clean up the road itself.
This landslide was caused by a long duration of rain that occurred between May 2-10, in which approximately five inches of rain fell at the slide location, including 2.5 inches of rain falling over the weekend of May 9.
As a result of this damage, the town of Pomfret has requested Emergency Aid from the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans). Since this slide damage does not qualify for FEMA or the Federal Highway Administration major disaster assistance, they have appealed to the state level for aid. Benjamin Brickner, Pomfret Selectboard chair, told the Standard, “We are optimistic that this event qualifies, but we are in very early stages of obtaining those state emergency funds. We hope the timeline is short and that we receive aid quickly, as we expect this will be a costly remediation and repair. The timeline to reopen Caper Street is still to be determined. That will depend in part on the work that’s being done now and work that will need to be done later in the spring and summer. The repair is expected to take months, not days.”
Caper Street is a residential dead-end road that was initially completely closed off because of the mudslide. Currently, it has been reduced to a one-way street to ensure residents can still get in and out of their homes while repair and road work continue.
As of this moment, the roads in question are stable, as Pomfret’s road crew installed additional ditching and drainage uphill of Caper Street to reduce hydraulic pressure on the slide area until permanent repairs can be made later this season.
