Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Flood 2009 hits home

I, along with millions in throughout the greater Atlanta area, are still in shock! Sunday was a typical fall day, upper 70's and drizzling rain - on and off. Scott managed to even get the lawn cut. It was the middle of the night when we were awoken from incredible rolling thunder & lighting.. and of course incredibly heavy rains - it has been years & years since I heard such a severe storm. Caroline joined us in bed soon after, so between the sounds of the storm and her tossing and turning - none of us got very much sleep. By morning the sites were breath-taking! Turning on the news that morning was sobering - schools closing, road closures .. and by late morning tragedies already being reported.

Monday morning 9/21 (which has remained to be the worst day), the Yellow River in our back yard reached our deck - which is about 12' away from our house. The neighbor to our left is closer to the river, so she is not so lucky - and she just moved in this past week! Take a look at the photos...

View from Caroline's room on the 2nd floor. The river normally sits 15' beyond the first tree in front of the angled part of the deck. An educated guess.. the river is 12-15'' deeper than normal!View from our breakfast nook - lake front view!
Water creeping up to our deck, it is 3' (on an incline) past the 100yr flood plane

View towards are shed.
View from side of the house - behind those shrubs is typically about a 6' drop/run off. Again, look how lucky we are/were!

As you can see - the neighbor to our left was not so lucky. Her house is 15' closer to the river, and sits a bit lower - so her entire basement flooded.
Lake front view from our lower deck -
This is our neighborhood tennis courts.
This is Plantation Road just outside of our subdivision. Thank goodness we have other alternatives! It was flooded for almost 2 days.

As of today, 9/23/09 the river has dropped back to normal levels. I will post aftermath photos later today. We are so incredibly fortunate (& continue to count our blessings) that our only loss was the plush looking backyard that we had. The news continues to report on devastating tragedies that it makes your heart ache. Austell area (west of Atlanta) has been the worst hit - 2 story homes under water all the way to the roof tops and schools completely submerged. My thoughts & prayers are going out to all those affected! What is most sad is they estimate that 75% of the victims of this flood will not be covered with their homeowners insurance. Vast majority are no where potential flood areas, so naturally who would have thought they would ever need flood insurance?!


Here is a video from our FOX 5 News on a tragedy just a few miles away.



And how about Six Flags amusement park? This is crazy - and they are reporting that they hope to be open by the weekend!! ?!


And even more wild is that as of today 9/23, 2 days after the initial damaging rain storms, parts of I-20 (yes, INTERSTATE!) remains closed!

CLICK HERE for the full story.

1 comment:

Danielle said...

THAT IS INSANE!! I know that you will miss your back yard for a while but thnkt GOD that your house isn't flooded!!!