Hell and High Water

Only 14 hours after arriving home from his trip to Europe last week, President Clinton donned a pink shirt, khakis and cowboy boots to survey the epic flood that has devastated a vast section of Georgia and the Florida- Alabama panhandle. As his DC-9 descended through the clouds to the airport in Albany, Georgia, the President stared at the muddy waters of the Flint River cascading through the city streets below, washing over the roofs of stores, houses and churches. Even before stopping at a disaster-relief center, Clinton had pledged $60 million in federal disaster aid to help the three states provide emergency shelter and drinking water, rebuild federal highways, and make loans to homeowners and businesses.

While the mess was not of the magnitude of last year’s Mississippi flood, which caused $12 billion in damages, Georgians had to reach all the way back to General Sherman’s Civil War march to the sea to recall anything comparable. Some 10,000 sq. mi. were under water, an area the size of Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined. Thirty-two people died and 40,000 were temporarily homeless. Thousands of acres of peanut, corn, soybean and other crops were destroyed, including Georgia’s renowned peaches, which were almost ready for harvesting. Crop damage was expected to reach $100 million in Georgia alone. “I believe this was a 500-year flood,” said Mayor B.K. Reynolds of Bainbridge, where National Guardsmen had hurriedly erected a 20-ft. bulwark around a fertilizer plant to prevent water from reaching the chemicals within, which would have released deadly fumes.

Meteorologists described the disaster as a freak occurrence caused when tropical storm Alberto traveled up from the Gulf of Mexico and stalled, dumping torrential rains. Roads, bridges and dams swiftly gave way to the swollen waters of the Flint and Ocmulgee rivers, bringing on a wave of tragedies. In the town of Americus, where 21 inches of rain fell within 24 hours, 16 people perished. Georgians will not soon forget the images of a young Americus woman screaming as the waters of Town Creek engulfed her car and swept her and her baby downstream. Or of dozens of coffins from Albany cemeteries bobbing in the clay-stained waters that washed through city streets. Or of the foul smell that permeated rural Macon County for days after 250,000 chickens drowned, forcing National Guardsmen to don masks to pick up the rotting carcasses.

Residents who had to flee their homes were anxious to get back, but authorities cautioned that houses should first be inspected for water moccasins. They also wanted to be sure that none of the alligators that inhabit the Flint River had taken a liking to suburban living. “It’s going to be a long time before things get back to normal around here,” said city councilman Jack Henderson of Newton as he steered a boat through the town’s / streets. The Rivertrace Restaurant and Oyster Bar was gone altogether, and the only sign of city hall was a vent pipe protruding from the water like a periscope.