In New England

The rivers of New England spent last week recovering from their stroke of autumn apoplexy. As they shrank back to normal, the mills that they used to turn, the power plants they used to keep humming, emerged from the flood covered with muck. Winter began to shut down and the muck froze. Much New England industry was crippled for months to come.

The people of New England followed the receding margins of the flood and returned to their riverside towns. Dunes of silt and wreckage filled streets and houses. Food and fuel were scarce. Communication was restored with difficulty. Railroads were broken up for the winter.

Vermont alone had more than 400 bridges to replace before her highways would be passable. Governor John E. Weeks, when able, wired President Coolidge that Vermont would need all the aid Washington and the Red Cross could send. The President sent Attorney General Sargent and asked Secretary Hoover to follow this week. The Vermont Emergency Board, established in 1923, met for the first time. Governor Smith of neighboring New York, sent over truckloads of workmen & supplies. Army planes flew from Boston, under Major General Preston Brown, to Vermont's assistance, carrying mail & medicines.

New Hampshire was less badly off. Governor Huntley M. Spaulding made no call for help. Massachusetts, which had expected the worst as the flood crests approached last fortnight, escaped major damage. Connecticut, too, had time to prepare.

As rehabilitation progressed, reliable reports of the flood and its aftermath came out of New England river valleys.

The Winooski had caused the most distress. Montpelier, Vermont capital, reckoned its mud-crusted damage at six millions.

Further down the Winooski valley, at Waterbury, Vt., martial law was declared. Many a flood freak had occurred. The 300 inmates of an insane asylum escaped. ... A large house with all lights lit floated by at the first flood midnight.*... A crippled farmer nearly starved in his garret. . . . Hearing that Bolton, downstream village, needed food, a Waterbury undertaker furnished coffins to float a raft, which reached Bolton. . . . A rendering (glue, etc.) factory in the Winooski Valley was offered 3,000 carcasses of drowned dairy cows. . . . Excavators were imperiled by a store of dynamite that floated out of a construction camp and lay scattered none knew where under the silt. . . . Wet hay combusted spontaneously in barns.

White River. Some 900 Dartmouth College undergraduates & professors turned out of Hanover, N. H., with picks & shovels, to dig out White River Junction, Vt.

Black River. Mrs. Sarah Pollard, 87, aunt of President Coolidge, told how the flood came to Proctorsville, Vt., shaking that hamlet at night "like a huge, grey monster."

Otter Creek, rushing into Rutland, Vt., caused damage estimated at five millions. Wealthy Rutlanders made haste to subscribe to a $500,000 voluntary, statewide fund suggested by Governor Weeks. They will be paid back in emergency state bonds.

The Merrimack was comparatively peaceful, though it and its tributaries destroyed some three millions worth of New Hampshire roads, and rose 25 feet to lash at and flood the textile mills of Manchester, Lowell & Lawrence. Hundreds were thrown out of work indefinitely.

The Connecticut receded slowly from riverside homes in Springfield, Mass. At Hartford, Conn., its crest was 29 feet high--only ten inches less than the record flood of 1854. The chief sufferers were working-class people, some of whom lost cellar-fuls of homemade wine. At its Narrows (near Haddam, Conn.), the river backed up broadly, flooding tobacco fields and villages.

Figures. The death total reached 135. The Red Cross reported 5,700 refugees. Total damage reached 120 millions.

*This house struck a bridge farther downstream, drowning several of the many inmates.