Vt. communities work to clean up after EF-1 tornadoes strike

QUECHEE, Vt. (WCAX) – Crews worked across the White River Valley on Friday to restore power and clean up debris after two EF-1 tornadoes touched down in Vermont, including one that swept through Quechee.

Joe Haynes stared over his yard in Woodstock, with chunks of his roof scattered across it, wondering about the next steps.

Reporter Connor Ullathorne: How long will this all take to clean up?

Joe Haynes: Oh, I have no idea.

He said he’s lucky he and his nearby neighbors are safe and are not blocked in.

“Some of the trees were down. They’ll be down for awhile but they can make their way out,” Haynes said.

Crews in Woodstock continued clearing trees and downed power lines along Route 4. That’s where Tiffany Miller was working inside the Mountain Creamery when the tornado passed right over the store. Nobody was injured, but their new walk-in storage ended up in the trees.

“It’s definitely a big setback for us. We were getting ready to have it wired up tomorrow. So I mean we definitely have a lot of elbow grease and hours to put in to get back up to where we were,” Miller said.

She said she was happy to see how many customers have checked in on them.

“It’s nice to see that no matter what, in some bad case– storms or indifferent– that we can still come together and be there for each other,” Miller said.

Farther east in Quechee, workers hacked away at trees and swept away debris along the golf course and roads.

“It’s crazy they want to see. Everybody cares about their community and all their assets and amenities, so it’s nice to see everybody come together,” Quechee Club General Manager Brian Kelley said.

Kelley said they were out early Friday, and many residents were shocked at the damage. He’s still hopeful the area can come together and support each other.

“We normally do about 200 rounds a day going into one of our peak weekends. We’ve got the balloon festival this weekend, so we have that population in town, so a little bit of disappointment but people have been great and supportive, and we’ll be back at it tomorrow,” Kelley said.

Kelley said it should be a few days until they are back to full force in Quechee.

Many others across the region told us they’re now focused on getting back to normal.

Click here for the latest forecast from the WCAX First Alert Weather Team.