It has been 10 years.
The first week of March, 1997, several parts of Owen County
were only accessible by boat. Homes were damaged, families lost
all their belongings, and a community joined together to bring
relief.
On Friday, Feb. 28, 1997, it began to rain. It rained for 12
hours. Creeks backed up and the water began to rise. An estimated
12 inches of rain fell in the county over the weekend.
Monterey Baptist Church pastor Tony Watkins remembers it well.
“By 3:00 (Saturday) afternoon we were convinced it was
going to flood,” he said.
Residents of the Monterey, Gratz and Sanders areas began to
load up belongings and look for shelter from the storm. About
6 a.m. Sunday, March 2, it was all over.
Watkins recalls the water as being chest-deep and said he “pretty
much had to swim through” to get to the church’s
parsonage, where he and his family were living at the time.
He said power was turned off Sunday evening in the town and
it was Thursday before the water began to recede.
Stories from The News-Herald following the flood say Monterey
firefighters worked for more than 12 hours to move 30 families
that Saturday and Sunday. Several county residents helped set
up shelters and provided assistance to the flood victims.
Watkins said about 50 people from the Georgia Baptist Disaster
Relief Team set up in the education building at Monterey Baptist
and stayed for a week, doing what they could to help. The National
Guard was sent in, and stayed for about a month, helping to
enforce a curfew – no one was allowed out after dark.
“It was a desolate time, for about two or three months
(there),” Watkins said.
The Salvation Army and Red Cross provided help, and Watkins
said for him it was a real time of community.
“People all over the county were asking, ‘How can
we help?’” he said.
Homes were lost in the flood. There are now four vacant lots
where homes used to be. According to a story in the March 5,
1997, issue of The News-Herald, there were at least 55 houses
partially under water. Parts of Hwy. 22 and Hwy. 127 were closed,
and Gov. Paul Patton issued a state of emergency for the county
on Sunday night.
Tom Olds was Judge-Executive at the time and said he had a helicopter
called in. The helicopter allowed officials to get a view of
the county and survey the damage that had been done.
“Our hearts were very heavy,” Olds said.
Olds recalls some areas of the county becoming inaccessible
for a few hours during the flood and the New Liberty Fire Department
coming close to being trapped in high water. Emergency responders
were out day and night working in the county.
Olds said he stayed in close contact with the mayors of both
Monterey and Gratz throughout the ordeal. He said supplying
people with fresh water was a great concern.
“It was quite a stirring situation for the county,”
he said.
He said it was very sad to see people evacuating their homes
and houses filling up with water.
Following the flood, Olds said more attention was given to floodplain
areas and some places were not allowed to be rebuilt on.
“It was all over the county,” he said, “widespread
disaster and damage.”
The last flood with such widespread damage in the area was in
1937, and Olds said he remembers many people comparing the two.
Rick Morgan, Director of Emergency Services, said many of the
people who evacuated went to a relative’s house. Some
people’s furniture was evacuated and stored in the Monterey
Firehouse.
Morgan remembers people being stranded at Eagle Creek Resort
and working with the different fire departments to get food
and other supplies to parts of the county.
As he checked the roads that night, Morgan remembers coming
up on an accident. There were two deaths as a result of the
flood. Marilyn and Allen Wilson, who were poll workers in the
Gratz precinct, were returning home late March 1 and continued
on, though “high water” signs were posted along
the road. The car was located on Thursday, March 6, under 18
feet of water.
A shelter was opened for some victims at the Wheatley Community
Center and Grant County brought supplies like water, groceries
and clothes.
The most important thing, Morgan said was as the water came
up, they wanted to make sure people were out and safe. Morgan
said in the future if there is a flood, the best thing people
can do is contact officials or the fire department and let them
know they are evacuating the area.
Watkins was on the town council at the time and said there was
an attempt to get a levy built to prevent something like this
happening in the future, but it didn’t happen.
“We tried diligently,” he said, “but we’re
just as susceptible (to a flood) now as we were then.”
“It’s just a fact of life, living here,” said
Monterey resident Joe Peters.
A meteorologist was quoted in the March 5 paper as saying the
“disaster was a 50-year flood, meaning it only happens
about twice a century.”
