Still Reeling From Irene, Northeast Braces For Arrival of Additional Rain

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As National Guardsmen and utility crews were working to reach some of Vermont's isolated, flood-ravaged towns by air and damaged roads, forecasters were predicting additional thunderstorms to come in from the west over Labor Day weekend. While dozens of roads remain closed to through traffic throughout the Green Mountain state, the village of Wardsboro, VT is reportedly the only town that's completely inaccessible by land on Thursday.

AP Photo

Complicating relief efforts in the Green Mountain state was the fact that 55 Guardsmen and all six of the Vermont National Guard's Blackhawk helicopters are presently deployed to Iraq. In the immediate aftermath of Irene, the New Hampshire National Guard sent two Blackhawks to Vermont and assistance came from as far away as Illinois when six CH-47 and two Blackhawk helicopters were dispatched. Food, water and other supplies were previously being made by the Vermont National Guard's much smaller Kiowa and Lakota helicopters.

Up and down the East coast as many as 900,000 utility customers from North Carolina's Outer Banks to the Green Mountains remain without power and farmers were assessing damage to their crops and livestock.

As the state government and individual Vermonters launched online appeals for donations and volunteer workers on Thursday, the Obama Administration approved emergency aid and funding for the Green Mountain state.