The first draft of history is being written about The Great Flood of 2023 or whatever we’re going to call this one. It’s all about doughty Vermonters stepping up in the face of adversity, banding together as communities, helping each other working day and night, and generally being the very definition of noble, selfless Vermonters.

There’s a lot of truth in that narrative. But.

Well, two buts. First, I’m not sure how different we are from anywhere else hit by a devastating event. Did the people of the Hudson Valley turn their neighbors away? Did the emergency responders in New Hampshire clock out at 5:00 after putting in an eight-hour shift? I don’t think so.

Second, and this is the big one. The Great Flood of 2023 should be the bellwether event that forever lays to rest the polite fiction that Vermont is immune from the growing effects of climate change, that this lovely little theme park is uniquely blessed by God or the Gods or Mother Earth and if only we commit to preserving its every jot and tittle, the Vermont of our fond imaginings will go on forever.

Nope. The monster we have created is on the move, and it cares not for your precious Vermont exceptionalism.

Here’s one small marker of just how serious Tuesday’s rainfall was. It’s insignificant in terms of suffering and displacement, and it’s personal, but I think it’s worth telling.

We live on a hill, and feel very lucky and/or blessed to do so. We won’t be flooded out unless God breaks that promise to Noah. So I was shocked to go downstairs Tuesday afternoon and find standing water — not much, less than half an inch — in most of our ground floor. It receded, leaving behind a whole lot of damp that we’re only beginning to deal with.

I’m not expecting sympathy. There are thousands of people within a few miles of me who’ve got it much worse. But here’s the thing: Only a sustained, torrential rainfall on the heels of a long stretch of wet weather could so saturate the ground that the water backed up into our house. More or less uphill.

Nothing like it has ever happened before. But things that have never happened before are happening more and more often, thanks to climate change. Unheard-of extremes are becoming the norm. This year alone has brought a devastating May frost (after a very mild and truncated “winter”), sudden spurts of high temperatures, and unseasonable quantities of rain even before Tuesday’s epic downpour.

When Montpelier is rebuilt, should we put it on stilts? Pretty much all of downtown is in a flood plain. The city has now had three “hundred-year” floods in a matter of 31 years. The First Street Foundation recently issued a report saying that the federal government’s official measures of flood risk are way off the mark. Its “Flood Factor” map assigns a typical Main Street property an “Extreme” risk of flooding, 10 out of 10, the worst grade possible.

Stilts hell, we’ve got to move the whole thing to higher ground. Hey, Montpelier, welcome to your shiny new downtown. In Hubbard Park.

The old downtown will become a flood-tolerant natural area. Yes, there will be walking and biking trails and other such amenities. But the geographical script will be flipped. Like it?

So many of our cities and towns are on rivers, streams, or lakes. So many of our roads and railroad tracks follow the courses of waterways. We have unconsciously built an infrastructure that’s absolutely unsuitable for the future we’re already living in. What are we going to do about that?

I imagine we’re going to tell ourselves inspiring tales of neighbors helping neighbors, dig better culverts, and hope the next “hundred-year flood” is something close to a hundred years away. I expect our governor won’t change his benighted climate policies one single iota.

(I didn’t watch his Tuesday press conference. Did anyone ask him about climate change? If so, did he answer with “Now is not the time to talk about that” or something similar, like a pro-gun politician commenting on gun restrictions after a mass shooting?)

Tuesday’s disaster should be the clarion call that motivates us to go all-out to create a truly sustainable Brave Little State that might have to prioritize wind and solar over saving viewsheds, that might have to rebuild communities in very different ways, that might have to question the wisdom of letting people build homes on waterways in the woods and expecting to be rescued from floods, that might not have the capacity for large-scale dairy farming when devastating floods are pouring nutrients into our already overburdened lakes and waterways.

Oh, my, we’re stepping on some toes, aren’t we?

Well, your toes had better get used to it, Bunky. Our monster doesn’t give a damn about your toes. He’s got very big feet. And he’s stomping all over the place.