Lake Champlain Residents Prepare for Worst as Water Rises

On the shoreline at Keeler Bay in South Hero, Vermont, spring has sprung.

Swollen by runoff from snowmelt, the blue water of Lake Champlain laps at the boulders and brick pavers, washes up under the house and covers the boat launch at Art and Laurie Huse’s waterfront home.

It hasn’t washed over the road yet, but it’s still rising. Like others who live along low-lying parts of the lake’s coastline, the Huses have been through this before. They’re not worrying — yet.

“It’s the dues we pay to live in a place like this,” said Laurie Huse, looking out a picture window at the water. “It’s what we talk about in the spring, ‘I wonder if it’s coming,’ ‘Are we going under?’ But once you make the decision to live here, you have to accept it.”

The 120-mile long lake, which is bordered by Vermont, New York and Quebec, is brimming over following a winter of record snow across Vermont and northern New England. It surpassed its 100-foot flood stage April 13 and stood at 100.54, high enough that the Route 2 causeway leading onto the island has lake waters up to the edge of the road on both sides.

With much snow still to melt and weather patterns uncertain, those who live closest to it are engaged in their annual rites of spring — monitoring lake levels online, moving belongings to higher ground and waiting.

“I’m not nervous, but it’s definitely high,” said Joe Solomon, who owns a year-round home at water’s edge. “I haven’t seen it this high in years, and certainly not with so much more to come.”

Historically, the lake level reaches flood stage about every other year. It’s the prospect of a 101-foot or 102-foot level that sparks abject fear along the waterline. In 1993, it hit 101.88 — the highest level ever recorded — flooding cottages and turning residential propane tanks into big, floating buoys.

“We’re still seeing some snowmelt from higher elevations, but the majority of the lower elevations have seen their snow gone,” said Conor Lahiff, a National Weather Service meteorologist in South Burlington. “There’s still water from tributaries getting into the lake. We still could see continued rises, but we’re not looking for it to reach a stage where it would affect property.”

Still, owners of small cottages and other seasonal homes — about 25 percent of South Hero’s houses — have been scurrying to the island in recent weeks to check on water levels and prepare for the worst.

The Huses have built in dozens of features to cope with the rise and fall of the lake. “It’s a beautiful and a frightening place,” said Huse, who keeps tabs on the water level even when he’s at work, tuning into a webcam set up in a windowsill of his living room.