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Sunday, Jul. 05, 2009

Flood of '94: 15 years later, tragedy, hope remembered in Middle Georgia

Dick and Elise Creswell were among the families featured in a June 12, 1994, story in The Telegraph about people who lived on the Ocmulgee River.

The Creswells, who then owned a home at Pope’s Ferry in Monroe County, discussed their dilemma about living on the river — the beauty of the area surrounding their home versus concerns that the property along the river was being overdeveloped.

“What I like least about living on the river is that I’m part of the problem,” Dick Creswell, who was acting dean of Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law at the time, said in the story. “My conflict is about developing the riverfront, and riverfront development is a problem. It does affect the river. It affects flooding, availability of drinking water, pollution, erosion. ... It ought to be outlawed.”

Three weeks later, it became a moot point.

Torrents of rain from Tropical Storm Alberto came down in Middle Georgia, sending water out of the Ocmulgee’s banks. The floodwaters caused many river homes, such as those owned by the Creswells and their neighbors, to either be washed away or rendered unlivable.

It’s been 15 years since the Flood of 1994. Thirty-three people died in Georgia and Alabama as the river crested as high as 35 feet, 4 inches on July 7. It was three weeks before running water was restored to the city, making simple acts such as taking a shower or flushing a toilet virtually impossible unless people had their own wells.

According to data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, the state received about $325 million in infrastructure aid across 55 counties affected by the storms. Bibb County itself received $103.2 million of that, plus about $962,000 in individual assistance aid. Houston, Sumter and Macon counties were given a combined $20 million in infrastructure aid.

THE PERFECT STORM

Middle Georgia had already had a rainy June that had wiped out much of that year’s rainfall deficit.

What had been described by the National Weather Service as an “uneventful weather system” started to build strength at the end of June.

By July 1, the swirling rain clouds were known as Tropical Storm Alberto, and the storm picked up steam as it left the Gulf of Mexico. Originally headed toward New Orleans and southeast Texas, Alberto shifted direction dramatically, landing near Destin, Fla., and pushing its way up the coast.

As it headed north toward Montgomery, Ala., Alberto crossed into west-central Georgia and treated Middle Georgia to a soggy July 4. It continued north until it hit a figurative brick wall just south of Atlanta, which pushed the storm back.

On July 5, Alberto punched Macon and its surrounding counties in the gut. Unrelenting rain caused bridges to wash out as the Ocmulgee rose in places such as Juliette and Pope’s Ferry, rushing along the river’s narrow and shallow banks toward the heart of Macon.

Dick Creswell already had a couple of floods at his Pope’s Ferry home and didn’t want a repeat.

“We had water come up before, but never to the floorboards of the house,” he said. “I thought it was best that we leave. It turned out to be a good thing.”

Elise Creswell wasn’t so sure. She was initially against her husband’s plan to move into a motel room for the night, but she lost that argument. The Creswells stacked their better furniture on a kitchen island and on top of cabinets. While Dick moved all of his best clothes into the attic, Elise didn’t bother, figuring her husband was overreacting.

Avid canoe enthusiasts, the Creswells loaded a boat onto their truck and left their home intact for the final time.

OVERWHELMING RAIN

It wasn’t as if emergency responders and government officials were caught completely off guard with the rain.

They knew it was raining hard. They knew the river was going to spill over at least a little bit.

“We were prepared for water to get out of the banks,” said Tommy Olmstead, who was Macon’s mayor in 1994. “We knew it was going to flood, but no one guessed it would do what it really did.”

It wasn’t just Bibb County that got hit hard, either. Montezuma and Americus suffered major devastation from flood damage as well. Most of the bridges in Houston County were wiped out.

Olmstead said that source of the river, located in Clayton County, was likely too overdeveloped, and the paved surfaces there served to help the floodwaters speed south.

“A lot happened that was more than just the rain,” Olmstead said. “It’s like the movie ‘The Perfect Storm.’ Everything worked together for (the flood) to happen.”

Olmstead said the river rose quickly, but much of the damage occurred as the river receded, carrying away structures with it.

“A lot of the damage was done when the water went out,” he said. “The water caved in roads and approaches to bridges.”

When the Creswells returned home July 6, water had completely flooded the area near the railroad tracks in Monroe County, so the couple had to travel the rest of the way in their canoe.

The couple eventually made it back home to find much of the house under water. They climbed on the roof and peered into the house from a skylight.

“It was a big whirlpool in there,” Elise Creswell said. “Every so often, the dining room table would float by.”

Along with some friends and neighbors, the Creswells were able to take some of the stuff in their attic — including the clothes Dick had stored there — and put it in the canoes.

Elise Creswell said she then noticed something that changed everything. The water was causing some trees to bang into the side of their house. That wouldn’t be a big deal except that normally, there were no trees on that side of the Creswell home.

“We were in the neighbors’ yard,” she said. “I realized the house had floated about 25 feet. I started yelling at everyone (inside the house) ‘You’ve got to get out right now!’ ”

Half of the Creswell house eventually broke off and floated down the Ocmulgee. The portion of the house that was still on land was mostly splinters. A photo that ran in The Telegraph days later shows U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga. — then a Mercer law professor — standing on top of the house’s remains, helping to clear the place out.

The Creswells’ neighbors were less lucky. The neighbors, who had a two-story house, stayed in Macon for the night. Dick Creswell was able to get into the second story and start to salvage some items while a call was made to the neighbors to see what they wanted to save.

The Creswells paddled back to the tracks to pick the neighbors up and take them to the house. Within the 40 minutes from the time the call was made until the neighbors were brought back to the house, the entire home had floated away.

NOT A DROP TO DRINK

Macon’s old water treatment plant — built in 1916 — had been prone to frequent flooding until a major flood in 1948, leaving it with electrical shortages and only half of its filters working. A levee designed by the federal government was put in after that flood, and it was designed to withstand a 100-year flood.

Phil Smith, a safety engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said that when the levee breached in 1994, it was because of overtopping.

“It took out about a 350-foot stretch of the levee,” Smith said.

Smith said that although the levee was built in the early 1900s for a 100-year flood level, subsequent nearby construction, such as building Interstate 16, meant that the levee wasn’t capable of handling that amount of rainfall.

Macon still reaps the lone benefit of the flood today — a new water treatment plant.

But that plant didn’t exist in 1994 when for the nearly three weeks no one, save for those who had their own wells, had water service.

“The Macon Water Authority had been talking about moving the plant for some time,” Olmstead said. “If anything good came out of the flood, it’s that we got us a new water facility that will last for another 300 years.”

Olmstead said people became inventive following the flood, devising systems to collect rainwater or other innovations designed to use less water.

“There are people today who still put a brick in their toilet tank to conserve water,” he said.

Dick Creswell had another problem. Water was needed to run the air conditioning systems at the Mercer law school building. With no air in the sweltering July heat, many of the old books in the law library started to become mildewed. Creswell said he got some help from Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., which set up a kids pool in the school’s parking lot and rigged some lines to get the air conditioning on once more — two days before the water crisis was finally over, Creswell said.

LESSONS LEARNED

People who lived through the flood say there was a strong spirit of cooperation, with residents pitching in to help their neighbors.

Olmstead’s first wife, Mary, who died in November of 1994, was dealing with cancer. With Tommy Olmstead’s attention being diverted to the city’s post-flood crisis, friends and neighbors pitched in to take care of her during that time.

“Those 23 days that we lived through brought the people of Macon and Bibb County together more than I’ve ever seen,” Olmstead said.

“Crime didn’t go up during that time — it went down. It might be because we had the National Guard on the streets, very visible.”

Olmstead said the disaster made the city and county better prepared for emergencies that Middle Georgia would face in subsequent years, such as last year’s Mother’s Day tornadoes.

“I think it’s made emergency management a much stronger outfit,” he said. “We realized they needed to be better prepared, and they are.”

People like the Creswells were able to make it through the flood with the help of family, friends and neighbors, who pitched in to help recover lost possessions, offer them a place to stay and provide other essentials.

“We were fortunate to have so many friends — from our church, canoeing and family — all come together,” Dick Creswell said. “We salvaged what we could and found a lot of things in good condition. We spent days digging through the mud and salvaged a lot of photographs. ... It was really quite a party. Everybody was absolutely wonderful. It wasn’t the total disaster you might think it was. We have a lot of stories from that time to talk about.”

Information from The Telegraph’s archives was used in this report. To contact writer Phillip Ramati, call 744-4334.