Lower Bartonsville Covered Bridge Washed Aware

A week after Irene hit the DC area and things are pretty much back to normal. Clean up went well, those who lost power have it back (for the most part) and while there are some trees that need to be ground up they are not on the roads or paths any more. Overall the greater DC area didn’t get too damaged during Irene, but the same cannot be said about Vermont. Listening to the news, talking to family and reading articles has revealed that Irene hit the state of Vermont much harder than the DC area and even most of New England (which is ironic since Vermont is the only landlocked state in New England).  The storm caused millions of dollars of damage to the state and it has forced the relocation of numerous residents. The story really hit home when I was told that the covered bridge near my grandparent’s house had been washed away.  Whenever I would visit them when I was little my grandmother and I would walk down to the bridge and go under it to look at the fish in the river bellow. Every time that I would go up to their house I had to drive over the bridge it brought me quite the sense of awe when I was a child and it was a fun experience to drive after I had gotten my license. 

Before Irene.

During Irene.

After Irene.

 

 

 Here is the bridge floating away.

The bridge itself was built in 1870 and has survived numerous nor’easters, hurricanes and other extreme weather conditions. The most damage it had taken before last week was a dump truck falling through it in the either the 1960’s or 1970’s. For those of you who are not familiar with covered bridges and in particular covered bridges in New England they are typically wooden, one lane and as the name implies they are covered. These bridges are typically considered land marks of the area that they are in. In New England they are looked upon with pride, so much so that the states of Vermont and New Hampshire have the most covered bridges per mile in the world. Heck, even my home town opted to rebuild our covered bridge when it was getting torn down instead of building a regular bridge. This could be because my home town has the only covered bridge in Massachusetts that is open to vehicular traffic or it could also be because of the love of the bridge, heck this is the second time that the bridge has been replaced with a covered bridge. Anyway, back to the covered bridge that stood near my grandparents, while the storm may have taken it away I have hopes that it will one day be rebuilt. If I am not mistaken there is already a fund being developed for just that purpose. I hope to be able to go back to the site of the bridge sometime this fall and get a firsthand account of it myself. If I am lucky I may even get to be there when they construct and open a new covered bridge where this one stood all those years. Maybe it will last over a hundred and forty years too.