“We woke up to a power outage”: Severe flooding, State of emergency in Chattooga, Floyd counties

CHATTOOGA COUNTY, Ga — A foot of rain fell Sunday in Chattooga County, causing flash flooding that blocked roads, knocked down trees and damaged homes.

Gov. Brian Kemp on Sunday issued a state of emergency, and a flash flood warning is still in effect for a large portion of the metro area until Monday.

“I didn’t expect it to rain as much as it has or to flood,” Gail Burts told Channel 2′s Larry Spruill.

Severe flooding, State of emergency in Chattooga, Floyd counties

Flooding swept across most of Chattooga County on Sunday. Floodwaters covered roads and submerged bridges, isolating Burts and her neighbors.

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“We’re actually trapped in because the road, of course, is right there. It’s a winding road, (so you’re stuck). Yeah, we are,” Burts said.

She said she has never experienced Mother Nature’s wrath like this before.

“We had, a lot of heavy rains, and we’ve had some flooding before but not like this,” Burts said.

NewsDrone 2 showed the impact of this flooding. Water completely surrounded a home near Liverly Dam Road. Water almost reached the deck of the house, but flooding isn’t the only issue for neighbors like Kevin Morgan.

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“We woke up to a power outage,” he said.

Morgan said it lasted for hours. Then on top of that, “It just was torrential rain for three to four hours,” he said.

Channel 2 Action News cameras captured most of the damage near the Chattooga River.

Summerville Mayor Harry Harvey said this is an emergency.

“Now we have a crisis as far as the water is concerned,” Harvey said. “We have low pressure in some areas, and we have some areas where there is not any water at all. We do have a boil water advisory, and we do ask the people to follow that boil water advisory. We are doing everything that we can to take care of this. We do not know the damage. We will have an assessment beginning hopefully tomorrow if the waters recede.”

Kemp announced the state of emergency on his Twitter page, writing: “Following severe flooding in North Georgia today, I have declared a State of Emergency in Chattooga and Floyd Counties. As we work w/ local partners to address the damage in affected communities, Marty and I are asking all Georgians to join us in praying for those impacted.”

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