Making home energy upgrades part of disaster recovery

When the Maine Climate Council convened for an emergency meeting after destructive flooding across the state in December and January, they looked to a neighboring state for advice on resiliency. Officials from Vermont spoke about their experience in July 2023, when as much as nine inches of rain fell on the Green Mountain State over two days, causing catastrophic flooding on par with Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Vermont’s lessons for Maine were all about flood management — clearing development and infrastructure out of floodplains to allow rivers to swell...