31 Jul News from Experienced Goods: August 2023
How Can I Help? by Jennie Reichman
When something catastrophic happens, many people remember where they were or what they were doing at that moment. When the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center happened in 2001, I was trying to call my then husband’s nephew in Brooklyn to find out where to send a wedding present for him and his fiance. I kept getting an all-circuits-busy signal, and didn’t understand why until I was driving to work and turned on my car radio. In 2011, when Tropical Storm Irene blew in, I was shopping in Keene when the first gusty wind and rain arrived. I cut short my errands and hurried home, outrunning the surge that left most of Southern Vermont with devastating flooding, damaged roads and lengthy power outages. And then recently, unprecedented thunderstorms descended on the region, doing damage that was equal to and in some cases surpassed that from Irene. As rain poured from the sky and thunder crashed, I felt a little re-traumatized. I filled all my large pots and pans with water and pulled out the Coleman lanterns. I had stocked up at the grocery store the day before, buying food I could cook on the stove top and extra toilet paper. I kept replaying in my mind the damage Irene did to Experienced Goods’ former location at 77 Flat Street: the inches of water in the store, the ruined merchandise, the awful smell. The two months of recovery and refurbishing at the Flat Street store and trying to keep Experienced Goods running from the Elliot Street Home Furnishings location. I texted Karen to suggest we take precautions, but she was way ahead of me, having installed flood gates and sand bags at the entryways even as the parking lot at 80 Flat Street was filling with water. Luckily that water stayed in the parking lot and did not reach the doors of the store, but the lessons from Irene are permanently etched in all of our minds, and safe is definitely better than sorry.
After Irene, we experienced a tremendous outpouring of support from the community, both in the shape of hands-on volunteer labor and continued patronage of the store. We have a photo album filled with pictures of people hauling totes of goods out of the warehouse area, washing down racks, bringing us provisions, all of us sweaty and dirty and working hard to clean up the mess. Those of us who went through that time will always be incredibly grateful to everyone who pitched in and volunteered many hours to get us cleaned up and running again.
Community support, neighbors helping neighbors in times of need, really is part of what makes Vermont unique. As parts of Vermont experienced catastrophic flooding and damage from the recent storms, I heard and read story after story of water rescues, people checking on each other and offering shelter, food, money and muscle to aid in cleanup efforts. As a small but mighty, mostly rural state, we are deeply aware of the people around us and how we depend on each other, whether in times of ease or times of disaster. We share the bounties of our gardens in the summer, pull each other out of snow banks in the winter, start most conversations with a comment about the weather. After Irene and after the Covid pandemic, the Brattleboro community showed up in so many ways to remind Experienced Goods and Brattleboro Area Hospice how much we are valued and cherished. I have no doubt that whatever the next curve ball is, we will all be there in our sturdy boots with willing hands and a plate of homemade muffins asking, “How can I help?”