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Bolton family struggles with high cost of safety due to widening gully behind home

Joel Banner Baird   | Burlington Free Press

BOLTON - Three years ago, the sound of rain pelting on the roof was a lullaby to Kristi Loven, her fiancé Wes Melville and their daughter, Mikaela.

They slept through a storm in late 2019, when the little creek behind their house surged into a torrent. They woke to find about 20 feet of the back yard was missing.

Two years later, the 10-foot deep gully has edged within an arm span of their modest Bolton home.

Hard rains and quick thaws keep the family awake now. So do uncertainties over how they might afford a move, even with federal and state help. There's a good chance they'll end up with nothing to their name.

Subscribers can read more here about the Loven-Melville family's slow surrender to a rapidly changing landscape, and why many more Vermonters might discover that a GoFundMe campaign is the new normal.


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