A large portion of Riverside is in a FEMA flood hazard zone, mapped in the blue and orange shaded area.

For the past few years, Sustainable Woodstock has worked alongside local partners and residents of Riverside Mobile Home Park to strengthen the community’s resilience to future flooding. With spring on the horizon, we are excited to share updates on our work at the park.

This coming year will be focused on working with residents to improve flood safety. We will host several events on-site at the park on flood preparation and community safety resources and will continue to develop a Riverside Community Emergency Plan. We will also dedicate time and effort to a planning grant funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in response to the July 2023 floods.

In December, Woodstock was awarded a $200,000 Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) planning grant. Sustainable Woodstock applied for the grant on behalf of the town and will lead the work, which will focus on Riverside Mobile Home Park. The grant will fund an engineering study to evaluate strategies that could lower flood heights at the park, including floodplain restoration. The grant will also fund a real estate/civil engineering study, which will identify potential relocation sites for the homes most at-risk of future flooding. The grant only funds planning, and not the implementation of any strategies from these studies.

Sustainable Woodstock is thrilled to be a recipient–via the Town of Woodstock–of the CDBG-DR grant, and we are currently working with the Town and state to complete all requirements that will allow us to get started. Ideally, the engineers will be on site measuring the river channel this summer. There are many unknowns when it comes to the question of how to reduce flooding at the park. This grant will answer some big questions. We will use that information to work with residents on what next steps they would like to take.

As we work on this longer grant, we will also host events at the park focused on flood safety. In June, Assistant Fire Chief & EMS Coordinator Rodney Kenyon will visit the park to meet with residents and answer questions. In August, the Vermont Department of Health will host a Personal Emergency Preparedness Training on-site at Riverside. Along with the training, residents will receive free emergency preparation kits.

Sustainable Woodstock is grateful to our partners in this work, including: the Town of Woodstock, Two Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Planning Commission (TRORC), The Hub, Community Care Coordinator Carla Kamel, Watershed Planner Marie Caduto, Upper Valley Medical Reserve Corps Co-Facilitator Misha McNabb, and residents of Riverside Mobile Home Park.