MORETOWN, Vt. -
There's big plans for online development in Vermont in 2013 and thanks to Senator Patrick Leahy rural communities now have a boost in funding to help develop more online resources.
The Economic Development award was helped secured by senator Leahy and it will be going to the Vermont Council on Rural Development to help online resources during disasters like Tropical Storm Irene.
"We were absolutely devastated by the flooding in Moretown," Moretown Elementary teacher librarian Meg Allison said.
She remembers just how terrible the damage was to the school after Irene while at the same time the town website wasn't operational.
"Our website was down. We didn't have an active town website at the time it was under construction," Allison said.
Moretown's Front Porch Forum page served as the online meeting place for locals but many communities didn't have that after Irene.
"Towns are looking to recover but they're also looking to how do we build resiliency in the face of future disasters," Executive Director of the Vermont Council on Rural Development Paul Costello said.
Costello says the $1.8 million grant to his organization will help businesses, non profits and local communities develop online resources after devastating storms.
"This project is going to be tremendous we learn so much about how do you set up a wifi zone what do you need for repeaters and equipment. now we're ready to take that to downtowns across the state," Costello said.
Moretown Elementary School is fully recovered now. The books are back on the shelves and the tiles on the floor after serious flooding and mold problems kept kids from attending class in the building. But looking back at Irene this community realized how much it needed that digital space to communicate on.
"Those digital tools really helped us organize our volunteers get people where they needed to go because we had such a huge response of people to help," Allison said.
