The last thing John and Jenny Mackenzie saw as they fled their Vermont home with their daughters, dog and two guinea pigs last summer was their cars upended and propelled away by rushing flood waters.
Minutes earlier they had abandoned their 19th-century wood-frame house as the remnants of Hurricane Beryl turned it into an island engulfed by surging flood waters, with trees slamming into it and water gushing at colossal speed into the basement and first floor.
