It has been over one week without sunshine and a great abundance of rain. Now we are seeing major flooding in the area with the death toll standing currently at 4 and 2 individuals missing. Please share your story here and/or post pics here in this forum.
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Metro Atlanta / State News Updated 5 minutes ago
Flooding claims lives; search for missing toddler
Roads closed, more rain, flooding expected
By
Mike Morris and
Katie Leslie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The deluge of rain that closed schools, highways and railroads across metro Atlanta turned deadly Monday. Two people have been confirmed dead and emergency crews are searching for countless more reported missing amid the flooding waters.
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Michael Tolmich, Special A Gwinnett school bus overturned in morning flooding at the county's bus lot. No one was on the bus, and the district closed schools after initially saying opening would be delayed 90 minutes.
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Bob Andres,
bandres@ajc.com An intersection was flooded out at Hiram Acworth Highway and Powder Creek Way. A small neighborhood nearby is also flooded.
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John Spink,
jspink@ajc.com Jason Goodson and his 9-year old son, Zachary, came to Post Road to see the washed away roadway. The road washed out along Post Road about a mile south of I-20 in Winston.
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Kent D. Johnson,
kdjohnson@ajc.com A deck dislodged from a house blocks the outflow from a pond in the Deer Lake subdivision on Bermuda Road in Stone Mountain.
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WAGA-TV reported that a desperate search was underway in Carroll County Monday afternoon for a toddler missing after his family's mobile home was swept into a rain-swollen creek. The mobile home split apart after being carried away by Snake Creek. After about three hours in the water, other family members were rescued, but the three-year-old was still missing.
Carroll County fire Deputy Chief Tim Padgett told the station that rescuers found "people hanging from trees, hanging onto their babies."
Two people have died in Gwinnett and Douglas County, and two people are missing.
A woman was driving on Desiree Drive near Lawrenceville Highway in the unincorporated Lawrenceville area around 5 a.m. when her van was swept into a rain-swollen creek. Firefighters arrived to find the area under several feet of water with one motorist standing on the roof of his car to escape the deluge, said Gwinnett fire spokesman Capt. Thomas Rutledge.
A swiftwater rescue team deployed an inflatable boat and firefighters on foot also used a rope system to help them navigate the rising tide as they waded in to search for the woman, identified as 39-year-old Seydi Burciaga, of Lawrenceville. They found her deceased inside the van, Rutledge said.
Relatives told authorities that they had been on the phone with Burciaga during her ordeal and relaying information about her condition and location to 911. However, they eventually lost contact with her, Rutledge said.
In Douglas County, spokesman Wes Tallon said a man's body had been found downstream from where a car was swept into a creek on North Helton Road. Also in Douglas County, five or six people have been reported missing, according to authorities.
Several roads throughout the region have been closed due to flooding. AJC.com is updating
its list of closures throughout the day.
A foot or more of rain Sunday and overnight forced schools to shut down Monday in several north Georgia counties, including Cobb, Gwinnett, Douglas, Paulding and Carroll counties in metro Atlanta. Carrollton City schools were also closed for the day.
Kennesaw State University also canceled its Monday classes.
A spokesman for Georgia Power said 11,300 people were without power in metro Atlanta, primarily in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas Counties.
Spokesman Jeff Wilson said crews are working to restore power but downed trees and additional storms continue to knock into utility poles and wires.
The rain-soaked ground has loosened the soil around trees, causing them to topple, taking out utility wires along the way.
Roads were closed by high water throughout the metro area, and in Douglas County, flooding washed out the main line of the Norfolk Southern railroad near Villa Rica.
While the flood warning was posted after midnight for Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton, eastern Cobb, Forsyth and Gwinnett counties, the worst flooding appeared to be in Gwinnett, Douglas and Paulding counties, which had been under a flood warning since earlier in the evening. There, National Weather Service radar estimated that as much as 15 inches of rain had fallen since Friday, much of it beginning on Sunday afternoon, when a series of strong storms began training, or following one another, northward through the area.
Those storms were still dumping rain across the western suburbs Monday.
The Weather Service said 3 to 7 inches had fallen just since 9 p.m. Sunday from Franklin in west Georgia through Carrollton and Douglasville to Dallas.
In addition to the flood warnings, a flood watch was in effect through Tuesday morning for all of north and central Georgia, as streams such as Sweetwater Creek in the western suburbs and Big Creek to the north continued to rise. Forecasters said that storms still west of Georgia could bring metro Atlanta another 1 to 5 inches of rain, causing major flooding along the Chattahoochee River, as well as along Peachtree and Nancy creeks.
Other parts of the state were also hard hit by the heavy rain.
In the northwest corner, a flood warning was posted for Catoosa, Chattooga, Walker and Whitfield counties, where an estimated 4 to 8 inches of rain had fallen since 8 p.m. Sunday. Schools were open Monday in Whitfield County, but closed in the other three counties.
To the northeast, Stephens County schools were closed Monday and a state of emergency was declared as much of the county was without running water because of flooding.
Flash flood warnings were also issued before daybreak for Hall, Banks, Jackson and Barrow counties.
A look ahead at weather
The rain is expected to continue, heavy at times, throughout Monday and overnight into Tuesday, the Weather Service said.
The chance of rain is 100 percent on Monday, 70 percent Monday night and 60 percent Tuesday.
A little break could come on Wednesday, when the chance of rain drops to 40 percent, and the chance of rain is only 20 percent on Thursday, forecasters said.
County by County updates:
Several areas of metro Atlanta were impacted by flooding Monday morning:
CHATTOOGA COUNTY:
County officials are evacuating about 300 residents in this northwest Georgia area because of concerns about a levy on the Chattooga River, said Dena Brummer, spokeswoman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA).
COBB COUNTY:
A dozen people were evacuated in Powder Springs in south Cobb because of rising water near their homes. An emergency shelter has been set up for them at the Powder Springs City Hall, county spokesman Robert J. Quigley said.
In Marietta, downed utility lines blocked the southbound lanes of Cobb Parkway near White Circle. A neighborhood was reported flooded along Oakdale Road in the southern part of the county.
Cobb currently has 94 roads closed due to flooding and downed trees, and police are only able to respond to
traffic accidents involving injuries or obstructed roadways, Quigley said. Officials are asking people to exchange information when needed with other drivers and contact police after the current storm and flooding has passed.
The county’s animal shelter is open and is accepting animals that belong to residents that have been displaced or that may need temporary shelter due to flooding, Quigley said.
DOUGLAS COUNTY
Authorities in Douglas County reported numerous rescues underway, and power was out along Douglas Boulevard in the area of Arbor Place Mall.
Douglas County fire and sheriff's personnel were "on the scene of multiple car floodings and lower floors of house floodings," county spokesman Tallon said before daybreak. Crews were using boats to rescue residents from low-lying homes along Berea and Pool roads.
Tallon said that Post Road just south of I-20 was "completely washed out." He said that more than 40 other roads, including Post Road just south of I-20, were closed and some washed out by flooding.
The county opened its Emergency Operations Center just before 1 a.m., Tallon said.
"The storm runoff is going at speeds higher than a person can walk through," he said. " This is a dangerous situation and Douglas County residents are requested to stay home, if possible, until conditions improve. "
Just before 6 a.m., Douglas County officials issued a "boil water" advisory for the entire county "due to multiple line breaks in the system, particularly in road washout and bridge failure areas," Tallon said.
DEKALB COUNTY
The "Spaghetti Junction" interchange of I-285 and I-85 in
DeKalb County was completely shut down by high water from before 7 a.m. until about 7:45. A few miles away, a mud slide blocked two westbound lanes and one eastbound lane on U.S. 78 at Hugh Howell Road.
FULTON COUNTY
Cascade Driving Range on Cascade Road near I-285 is reportedly under water.
GWINNETT COUNTY
Heavy rains forced the closing Monday of dozens of roads in Gwinnett -- mostly in the Lilburn and Snellville areas, according to the county transportation department.
"We're closing roads all over the place," said Tim Quick of the
Gwinnett County DOT. "It looks like we're going to be working all night. It's raining real heavy up north and we're at the bottom of it."
Some of the worst problems at about 7:30 a.m. were in the Stone Mountain area on U.S. 78 from the
DeKalb County line to Ross Road,
Gwinnett County Police Officer Brian Kelly said.
Linda Barudin, a resident of the Connamaria subdivision between Lawrenceville and Lilburn, said her neighborhood was cut off by flooding from the nearby Yellow River and a tributary. She said residents could not get into or out of the subdivision.
A precinct on the county's southside had to call in officers from other areas for help responding to emergency calls, Kelly said.
Gwinnett County Public Schools shut down for the day after initially planning a 90-minute delay.
Sloan Roach, the school system's spokeswoman, said, with several roads closes around the county, other roads were getting jammed.
"That was going to make the buses very very late in making their pickups," she said. "And we didn't want children standing out in the rain for a long time."
Some students were already at school when the decision was made to close, and buses were rerouted back to make sure that students who rode the school bus in had transportation back home, she said.
PAULDING COUNTY
Numerous major roads were blocked by high water in Paulding County early Monday, authorities said. Among the roads closed were U.S. 278 and Ga. 92 in the Hiram area, Paulding County sheriff's spokesman Brandon Gurley said. He said more than 60 roads were closed countywide.
"We're still having problems all over the county, people stranded in homes and vehicles," Gurley said before daybreak. He said deputies were involved in "quite a few" rescues, but no injuries had been reported.
Power was also out in many areas of the county, including the major business district around U.S. 278 and Ga. 92, and a couple of convenience stores on Ga. 92 were reported flooded. The county courthouse was closed Monday due to the flooding.
Staff writers Kristi Swartz, Nancy Badertscher and Andria Simmons contributed to this article.
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