Flood in Austell - Mableton Area

Torrential rains came on September 20-21, the like of which we had never seen here. Our house was high enough to not be severely affected, and we started to get the impact on Tuesday, September 22 when Brenda tried to get down Cardell Road about a mile and a half from our house.

When she topped the hill on Cardell Road she was facing a lake over the intersection of Cardell and Old Alabama Road. The water was up to the sign at the intersection, and was more than 10ft deep at points along the road from observation of the water marks on the trees. You might be able to barely see the top of the road sign at the edge of the road in the view above.

I parked near the lake on Cardell and walked over the hump to see the water at the intersection of Maxham Road and Old Alabama Road. As a reference for depth, you can see the top of the intersection sign just below and to the right of the blue-tarped sign of the old BP Station that was there. The bridge across the Sweetwater Creek is about 50 yards down Old Alabama to the left, so the water had to be 10 feet over the roadway of that bridge.

Apparently only the house closest to the creek on Cardell Road took water in the house, although the yard of the second house was full of water.

Unfortunately for that closest family to the creek, the water came to the top of their lower carport and apparently filled the bottom floor of the house.

I was interested to see the Maxham/Old Alabama intersection from the Maxham Road side, but when I drove around there I found that the dip in Maxham Road close to Thornton Road was also flooded. The Douglas County Sherrif's office had a bus there and they were ferrying out stranded residents on a small boat.

I headed down Thornton Road to try to get to Bankhead Highway, but Thornton was also closed at a bridge. Blair Bridge toward Sweetwater Park was closed, so I headed back to Factory Shoals and went home.

All three area bridges across the Chattahoochie River had been closed on Tuesday as the river crested, but I was able to cross it to go in to Georgia State on Wednesday, Sep 23. The river was just a few feet below the roadway.

Upon my return from Atlanta, the Chattahoochie River bridge on the expressway I-20 had just been opened to traffic and I got this view of the river from that bridge. It's hard to gauge how far it is above normal, but I have never seen it this high. It is usually tucked well inside the tree line. As I passe the bridge I saw water marks six to eight feet above the current water line, so it had been that much higher.