Earth Support Corp

Addison CountyVermont

Orwell, Vermont

Bedrock sits a median 16 ft down across 325 logs, shallower than the Vermont median of 20 ft. None of its 5 inventoried bridges is rated poor.

Median depth to bedrock

16 ft

middle half 6–40 ft · 325 logs

Bridges rated poor

0

of 5 inventoried

Mapped landslides

1

USGS inventory points

FEMA repair $, Addison County

$17.8M

federal share since 2010 · county-wide

01 · Ground

Rock turns up a median 16 ft down

From 325 depth-to-rock records inside Orwell (Vermont DEC well records). Logs cluster where people drill wells and bore for roads, so treat this as the town’s pattern, not a site answer.

Half of Orwell's logs reach rock between 6 and 40 ft

Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = Vermont median.
median 16 ft
VT 20 ft
0255075 ft
0204060801000–5 ft5–10 ft10–20 ft20–50 ft50–100 ft100+ ft
n = 325 logsSource: Vermont DEC well records
▸ Show the numbers
Depth to rock (ft)Logs
0–549
5–1057
10–2066
20–5082
50–10040
100+31

Rock within 10 ft

37%

of logs (34% across Vermont). Shallow rock means ledge in excavations, refusal for driven piles and rock anchors rather than soil nails; deep ground means taller shoring and more groundwater. 21% of logs here go past 50 ft.

Mapped landslides

1

1 landslide. Inventory points from the USGS U.S. Landslide Inventory; many are prehistoric slides mapped from lidar.

02 · Bridges

None of Orwell's 5 bridges is rated poor

Every highway bridge and large culvert in the 2025 National Bridge Inventory that stands inside Orwell. Median age 47 years.

60% good, 0% poor

FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
  • Good3 · 60%
  • Fair2 · 40%
  • Poor0 · 0%
n = 5 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers
BuiltStructures
1940s1
1950s1
1970s1
1980s1
1990s1

03 · Dams & disasters

Addison County has drawn $17.8M in federal disaster repair since 2010

FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Addison County-wide context, not a Orwell number.

FEMA Public Assistance, Addison County

$17.8M

Federal share obligated across 312 projects in 12 declared disasters since 2010. The largest category is roads & bridges (76%); roads & bridges took $13.5M.
Dams, disasters & moving ground

04 · Next door

Orwell and the 4 towns that border it

A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
Orwell compared with neighbouring towns
TownPoor bridgesRock depth
Orwell, VT0 / 516 ft
Benson, VT0 / 512 ft
Shoreham, VT0 / 420 ft
Sudbury, VT0 / 112 ft
Whiting, VT20 ft

Where these numbers come from

Method, sources & caveats

Orwell is the Census county subdivision 5000153725 (Addison County). Every record is placed here by its coordinates, not by the place name the source uses.

  • Towns are Census county subdivisions: cities, towns, plantations, and Maine/New Hampshire unorganized territories and townships. Every record is placed in a town by its coordinates (point-in-polygon), not by the source's own place label — so a bridge in Roxbury counts for Boston and a well in 'North Waltham' counts for Waltham.
  • Bridges: FHWA NBI 2025, highway structures ≥ 20 ft including large culverts. 'Poor' is FHWA's good/fair/poor rating (lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert ≤ 4). Percent-poor is shown only for towns with at least 5 structures.
  • Depth to bedrock is the median of driller- and boring-reported depths in the town, shown only where at least 10 logs exist. Water-well logs over-sample rural lots and hilltops; one town median never describes a particular site.
  • Bedrock depths use the same state databases and filters as the Bedrock & soils module (bedrock wells and borings that reached rock, 0 < depth ≤ 400 ft, exact re-filings dropped), but every log is placed in a town by its coordinates rather than the driller's town field, so town counts can differ slightly between the two pages. Connecticut and Rhode Island have no statewide public well-log database with depths.
  • Dams: only high-hazard-potential dams whose latest condition assessment is Poor or Unsatisfactory are counted (live NID). Connecticut and Rhode Island assessments may lag.
  • FEMA Public Assistance dollars are federal share obligated for disasters declared since 2010, reported by county — they are county context, not a town figure.
  • Grant awards are Massachusetts only (EEA Dam & Seawall program, MVP Action grants, CZM Coastal Resilience). Other states' programs are not yet included.
  • Ground-related permit counts cover only the municipal portals the pipeline reads (Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Worcester, Framingham, Providence, Portsmouth, Hartford and a few others) — an absent count means 'not covered', not zero.
Data as of
Sep 11, 2026
Generated
Sep 11, 2026
Records
367,748
Refresh
Live pull · weekly

Published by Earth Support Corp as a public resource. Regional statistics for planning and curiosity. They are not an engineering report, a bid recommendation or a statement about any particular site, firm or project. Spot an error? Tell us and we will correct it. Full method: methodology.

CallStart Quote