DUXBURY— Tropical Storm Irene destroyed roads and marooned residents in more than a dozen central and southern Vermont towns in a matter of hours. The disaster took four days to unfold on Camels Hump Road, just east of Chittenden County.

Duxbury town officials Thursday closed the road — a primary access to Camels Hump State Park — to all but local traffic. Soon, they expect to close a severely flood-damaged bridge still being used by residents of 45 to 50 homes who have no other way in or out.

The road was reduced to a single, precarious lane in several places where Ridley Brook carved chasms on one or both sides of the road. Residents with two cars could leave one vehicle on each side of the bridge and walk across the structure if it is closed to all traffic — but no one thinks that is an acceptable solution.

“I don’t want to scare people, but what about safety? What if there is a fire? What if someone has a medical emergency?” asked Jamison Ervin, a mother who is pressing the town to act quickly to restore a safe road connection.

“The ambulance can’t cross the bridge. A fire truck can’t cross the bridge. The propane truck can’t cross the bridge,” she said.

Residents of the road know their plight is not at the top of the priority list for a state coping with whole towns cut off by the flood and struggling to make emergency repairs to major arteries, including U.S. 7 and U.S. 4.

“We know there are higher priority communities ahead of us, but we want the state to know we’re in line,” resident John Shane said.

The situation on Camels Hump Road is a microcosm of the complex, expensive and urgent problems facing dozens of flood-stricken towns across the state: How to provide immediate vehicle access to isolated neighborhoods, how to improve that access in the

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