Initial Cleanup of Vermont Office Complex Completed

The initial cleanup and stabilization of Vermont’s state office complex in Waterbury that was damaged by Tropical Storm Irene will cost $20 million to $25 million, officials said Monday.

They expect insurance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover most of the expenses.

More than 44 firms joined the cleanup, which included cleaning the facilities of contaminants carried by flood water, removing silt from basements and tunnels and disinfecting, drying and stabilizing the buildings.

“It’s been quite an endeavor,” Michael Obuchowski, the commissioner of the department of Buildings and General Services, said at a Statehouse meeting Monday of the House and Senate Institutions committees.

Two days before Irene struck on Aug. 28, Obuchowski said he and others met to discuss preparations for the looming storm, and officials at the time were confident the state complex could withstand flooding from even an extreme storm.

“But come 8-28-11, Irene dumped considerably more precipitation on us than we had anticipated,” Obuchowski said. “We had taken the normal precautions of moving our fleet cars and making sure that the trucks had sufficient fuel in them, sandbagging the windows. What we were to experience was beyond our wildest dreams.”

The flood-swollen Winooski River, which passes through Waterbury, inundated the ground floors and basements of the state office complex as well as private property in the area. The damage forced most of the 1,500 state employees who worked at the Waterbury complex to find temporary work locations elsewhere.

Meanwhile, officials in Gov. Peter Shumlin’s office say they will decide by spring what to do with the complex. The options being considered are refurbishing and reopening the complex, creating a new state building or campus elsewhere, or some blend of the two.

Since the flooding the only facility at the Waterbury complex to reopen is the Public Safety building, which includes the headquarters of the Vermont State Police and the state’s forensic laboratory.

But electricity has been restored to the electrical panels in the buildings, although not necessarily throughout the damaged buildings, and the heating systems are also being restored.