'Keep on Keeping On': Vermont Artist Helps Community Rebuild After Irene
Ann Coleman and her husband lost both of their businesses in the floodwaters.
Sept. 5, 2011 — -- Ann Coleman has traded in a paintbrush for a broom.
The Wilmington, Vt., artist lost her art gallery when Hurricane Irene, on its last legs after battering the East Coast, walloped the state last week.
Her nearly $400,000 investment now lies in ruins more than two miles downstream.
"I wish I had flood insurance," Coleman said, "but I couldn't afford it."
The art gallery, once a prominent fixture on the city's main street, is now an empty space. The storm caused the worst flooding in the state in 84 years, washing away bridges and roadways and cutting residents off from the outside world.
Because she and her husband are both self-employed, neither of them can collect unemployment.
After Irene, 'Our Slate Has Been Wiped Clean'
"Our slate has been wiped clean literally," she told ABC News. "People kept giving me condolences. ... I took a picture and then my eyes went back to where my building was supposed to be. There was no yellow there and it was like it's gone. It's completely gone."
She and her husband decided not to spend time thinking about their own losses and focused on their neighbors.
"It seems selfish not to do that," said her husband, Joe Coleman, whose real estate business was also ruined by the deluge. "If our building were still there and we needed help, everyone would be helping us."
"Our generator, we were going to use it because we were out of power at home," she told ABC News. She gave it to a neighbor. Coleman is also giving away vegetables from her backyard and doling out emotional support.
She and Joe say they barely have enough time to pick up the pieces of their own lives.
"Everybody has helped us along the way, so do unto others as you would have them do unto you," she said. "It's all about doing things and being the best you can be. We'll keep on keeping on."
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