Georgia Grapples With Damage After Storms

ATLANTA — The death toll from the floods in Georgia rose to nine people as the waters continued to recede on Wednesday, and residents grappled with the damage that has destroyed their homes, uprooted their lives and shut down bridges and major roadways around the Atlanta area.

Another body was found Tuesday evening in hardest-hit Douglas County. Richard Butler, 29, was swept from his car and died, like the other five victims from the county, as a result of flash-flooding, said Wes Tallon, the spokesman for the county’s emergency management agency.

Flooded homes in a neighborhood in Mableton, Ga., on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the waters in the area began to recede.

In the county, about 23 miles west of the city, people were lining up for bottled water while the authorities checked abandoned cars for bodies and swept debris to clear streets.

The county was hit by 21 inches of rain in a 24-hour period from Sunday to Monday, knocking out the drinking water supply to most residents, and forcing others to boil their water. On Wednesday, two churches provided bottles for people. “It’s going as fast as we’re giving it away,” Mr. Tallon said.

The main interstate — I-20 — leading to Atlanta reopened after 11 a.m. on Thursday, while only two bridges spanning the flooded Chattahoochee River remained closed, helping the county slowly return to its operations..

Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia declared a state of emergency in 17 counties and pleaded for federal aid, offering his appeal directly to President Obama on Tuesday night. The state insurance commissioner estimated that $250 million worth of damage had been done, mostly to homeowners without insurance.

As much as 15 to 20 inches of rain pounded counties around Atlanta for more than 72 hours, and while the rain subsided on Tuesday morning, the authorities were still dealing with dangerous repercussions.

A sewage treatment plant northwest of Atlanta flooded late Monday and into Tuesday, spewing sewage into the Chattahoochee River, which had already swollen to at least 12 feet over its minimum flood stage level. City officials said the damage to the plant would amount to tens of millions of dollars.

Several of the deaths occurred on roadways that had suddenly become impassable because of rushing waters. On Tuesday morning, the body of 14-year-old Nicholas Osley was recovered from a cornfield flooded by the nearby Chattooga River in Trion, Ga., said a spokeswoman for the Chattooga County Emergency Management Agency. On Monday, the teenager and a friend had rushed to an abandoned car to rescue the occupant, not knowing the occupant had already escaped. Nicholas was swept away by the current, while his friend was rescued, the spokeswoman said. Later on Tuesday afternoon, the body of a woman was found in Douglas County after a flash flood from the Anneewakee Creek (usually two feet deep) overwhelmed the roadway, sweeping the car downstream.

In Carroll County, about 50 miles west of Atlanta, Tim Padgett, the emergency management director, said that a 2-year-old boy died when his family’s mobile home was swept away by the fast-moving Snake Creek — about 18 feet higher than its normal level — and the father could no longer hold on to his son in the rush of the water.

Dená Brummer, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, warned people not to return prematurely into flooded areas, and to avoid driving through any water.

The waters flooded both rural and urban areas, even ravaging Buckhead, a wealthy neighborhood north of downtown Atlanta. When the neighborhood’s normally serene Nancy Creek rose to near-record levels, it burst into the basement and the first floor of the large red-brick white-columned house belonging to Dr. O. Scott Swayze and his family. It reached up to three feet on the first floor.

“The basement was an aquarium,” Dr. Swayze said. “This house was built in ’68, and the previous owners never had anything this high. This is the proverbial 100-year flood.”

The flood turned streets into their own estuaries and gave a new meaning to the name of the popular restaurant Canoe. Residents on Paces Ferry Drive were rowing in and out of their houses, using boats they would normally use for catching bass and trout in the Chattahoochee River.

State emergency officials said about 30,000 homes were without electricity. Trisha Palmer, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Ga., said that the flooding was far worse than the hurricane-level damage from 2005. “In this office, nobody remembers anything like this,” she said. “This is worse and much more widespread.”

Although the storms themselves have not been severe, Ms. Palmer said that the rains had been relentless for the better part of a week, resulting from Gulf and Atlantic moisture moving over the Southeast. She said there was a chance for afternoon showers for the remainder of the week.

Tags: Atlanta, Georgia, World