Vermont Still Reeling from Hurricane Irene's Impact

Massive flooding and widespread power outages continued to bother Vermont on Tuesday after Hurricane Irene hit the small Northern state on Sunday.

More than 50,000 Vermont residents are still without power and much of southern Vermont has been disjointed from the rest of the state due to flooding -- making it difficult for help to arrive.

The Vermont National Guard had to travel through Massachusetts in order to get rescue crews to Wilmington and other small Vermont towns, according to reports.

Much of the attention and hype preceding Hurricane Irene was directed at its potential devastating impact on New York City, but the worst damage appears to be in Vermont.

I keep being somewhat disappointed by some of the national press that think because Manhattan wasn't hit, everything is fine, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said Monday. We're not Manhattan, but we have human lives here in Vermont, too.

At least three Vermont residents have been killed in relation to Hurricane Irene and a fourth person is still missing. President Obama declared a federal emergency in Vermont on Monday, which enables the state to tap into FEMA funds.

Thirty trucks from FEMA finally arrived in Vermont on Tuesday. The trucks will deliver food, blankets, and other necessary items to the communities in most need.

The funds from FEMA are extremely important to the state as Vermont is one of the states least insured for floods, according to Reuters.

According to the National Weather Service, Hurricane Irene is one of the worst weather related disasters in Vermont's history. Prior to Irene, the worst disaster was considered to be a flood in 1927, but the aftermath of the hurricane is already setting up to be worse.

It's just devastating, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said Monday. Whole communities under water, businesses, homes, obviously roads and bridges, rail transportation infrastructure. We've lost farmers' crops, he said.

We're tough folks up here but Irene ... really hit us hard.

At least four of Vermont's six historic covered bridges have been destroyed due to the flooding, Vermont officials said on Monday. Officials predict even more could be lost to flooding but that it will take some time to assess all the damage.

Some of this can't be assessed because the water is still very high, Vermont Transportation Secetary Brian Searles told the Associated Press. Some will call for fixes that will take a while. We're going to need a lot of temporary bridges.

One of the major issues is the tremendous amount of runoff, according to Searles, that is flowing onto roads, properties, and bridges. Worse is unlike other states, which reported a mixed bag of damage depending on the area, almost all of Vermont suffered damage from Irene.

If you follow the path of the storm there wasn't a single area of the state that was spared, Vermont Emergency Management spokesman Robert Stirewalt told the Associated Press. It hit the south first, but then it worked its way north.