Whoever thought that we would have to worry about a hurricane striking while we're hiking through New England?  Certainly not us, and all the well-meaning folks who warned us about bears, snakes and creepers never said anything about watching out for tropical storms.  But a hurricane did strike, the first in over a hundred years to hit this area.  We were lucky enough to have a place to stay during the actual storm, and the storm itself was really not impressive.  I actually laughed to myself at the New Englanders who were freaking out about a little wind and rain.  However, the effects of the storm were almost immediately noticeable.  Two days after Irene hit, we were hiking through the small town of West Hartford.  The river that runs through it had flooded the town and had covered the town in thick silt, destroyed several homes, and damaged the roads and bridge.  There was a mattress in a tree, a propane tank lying next to the road, and an array of other things that were not where they should be.  The whole town was without water and electricity.  We passed by Steve & Kathy, who have opened their home to hikers for years, and after seeing the condition their house was in we offered to donate a couple hours of our time to help them clean out some of the mud.  We worked tirelessly for almost 2 hours, shoveling mud off the porch and out of the green house, but seemed to accomplish very little.  Amazingly, Steve & Kathy still had big smiles on their faces when we left as they thanked us and apologized that the town didn't have anything to offer us.  Part of the trail in Vermont has been entirely washed away, and hikers have had to maneuver their way around, crossing rivers several times to get back to the originl path.  Because of roads being washed out, several towns are only accessible by foot.  Twice we have gotten into a town by getting one hitch to where the road is washed out, then hiking through woods or over damaged bridges to the other side of the road, and getting another hitch from there into the town.  Today we are actually having to skip about 20 miles of the trail because it is under water.  The people of Vermont are very resilient and we have been met with smiles and amazing attitudes everywhere we have been.  Please keep them in your prayers.