Now, state officials are repairing their relationship with Marshfield residents. That’s because Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison explained the state’s inaction on the issue by falsely claiming publicly that Marshfield’s volunteer emergency management director had failed to inform officials about it. Morrison, who oversees emergency management, made the claim at Gov. Phil Scott’s press conference on Wednesday.
Marshfield residents reacted in force, writing and calling to report that the director, Justin Campbell, had reported that the town had no water supply as he worked 18-hour days after the flood to get the roads repaired and secure help from state and federal officials.
Morrison apologized to Campbell for her remarks in an email on Thursday morning.
“I did not intend to undermine you or diminish your performance as [emergency management director], yet I understand that my remarks left that impression,” she wrote. “Please accept my apologies for that. I should know better than to try and troubleshoot complex problems on the fly (from a podium).
“I am working on getting a clear understanding of where the gap in communication is,” she wrote.
State officials have broken their promise to help, charged Rep. Marc Mihaly (D-East Calais). The towns in his district — Calais, Marshfield and Plainfield — all sustained damage to roads, bridges and buildings. Mihaly said Vermont’s State Emergency Operations Center indicated that it could help Marshfield obtain a washing station for residents who don’t have water — but that Marshfield would need to provide the water for the station.
“This in response to a town without water,” Mihaly wrote in an email. “You can’t make this stuff up!”
Mihaly added that Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn promised at a press conference to provide people and equipment to help local governments address debris and road damage.
“More than a week ago Calais requested as many trucks and drivers to haul gravel as possible and a front loader with a hydraulic ram,” Mihaly said. Photos posted on social media show Calais roads that have been washed out, leaving deep ditches. No equipment had arrived.
“The contrast between what the governor and cabinet members say and what is happening on the ground is striking,” Mihaly said.
The public spat over Marshfield’s water took place after Seven Days asked Gov. Phil Scott at a press conference on Wednesday how many towns in Vermont still don’t have water.
None, Scott answered, adding that some were still on boil-water notices. After this reporter, a Marshfield resident, noted that this was not the case, Commissioner Morrison suggested that town officials had failed to notify the proper authorities. The reporter noted that the National Guard had visited the town to deliver bottled water and had met with Campbell, but Morrison reiterated that towns needed to communicate directly with emergency ops in order to receive assistance.
“Reporting or chitchatting with the [Vermont National] Guard and receiving deliveries of water is not working the system that has been in place for a long time,” Morrison replied. “So we are happy to jump right on that as soon as we get a request from your municipal officials.”
With a population of about 1,600, Marshfield’s tiny town government includes a town clerk, an assistant town clerk and a custodian. The emergency response was led almost entirely by volunteers, including Campbell, who acquired his new title as emergency management director when he was elected to the selectboard for the first time in March. Campbell works as a senior maintenance mechanic at Cabot Creamery and lives in Marshfield village; he took vacation days after the flood to order heavy equipment for road and water repairs.
He also said he spent hours on the phone with state officials requesting portable toilets, showers and drinking water. The National Guard supplied the water; the emergency ops center advised him to use a private vendor for the portable toilets, Campbell said. Non-potable water, which residents needed for flushing toilets, was supplied for free by a local company, Wright Construction, which parked a truck with water tanks outside the Marshfield Village Store. Campbell also said he asked the emergency ops center last week for a portable shower and was told it was impossible to deliver one that included a water tank.
After Campbell watched a video of the news conference and saw Morrison’s claim that town officials had failed to notify the SEOC, Campbell sent a heated note to her late on Wednesday, outlining the conversations he had with the SEOC and other state entities; Morrison sent him the apologetic email the next day, saying she hadn’t meant to undermine his position.
“I completely understand your frustration with my remarks,” she wrote.
After VTDigger.org and WCAX reported about the situation in Marshfield on Wednesday, Morrison received a deluge of calls in support of Campbell, she said.
“The short answer is that I was provided some partial information that was accurate but was not the whole picture,” she told Seven Days on Thursday. “There was a breakdown in communication.”
Campbell was still processing his lessons from his first crisis as emergency management director. “The support here has been totally overwhelming,” Campbell said, with tears in his eyes. “Everybody has had my back.”
That includes Michelle Eddleman McCormick, co-owner of the Marshfield Village Store, which has served as a clearinghouse for donated supplies. McCormick has worked closely with Campbell on the disaster response.
“The buck stops with you,” McCormick wrote to Morrison in a Facebook post late Wednesday. “When you make a mistake — you own it and work to correct it — you don’t punch down and place blame on the volunteer town emergency manager that actually DID his job.”
Mihaly, who is serving his first term, said he thinks the state is promising too much in the early days of response, and officials are probably overwhelmed.
“Everyone and his mother is calling them,” he said. He’s also confident the publicity will help get some towns the assistance that they need.
“We asked and we asked and we asked” for help with Calais’ roads, Mihaly said. “I think something will come now.”
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2023.
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