That's a Lot of Water

The Water and Sewer Authority in my county west of Atlanta put an information leaflet in my water bill that I received last week regarding the big floods of last September. There was a lot of road and culvert damage in the county and there are some roads and bridges that are not repaired yet. Overall, the county's response was pretty good to me considering the enormous amount of rain.

Parts of the county received 21 inches of rain in 24 hours. A 500 year rain event in our area is considered to be 9 inches in 24 hours. That's a lot of water.

On average, 25 million gallons of water enters the county's largest reservoir everyday. The day of the flood over 40 BILLION gallons of water went over the not yet completed new dam causing some substantial damage. That's a lot of water.

Sweetwater Creek rose high enough to cross over I-20 blocking the freeway for two days. The USGS said at the peak of flooding 28,000 gallons of water per second flowed past the bridge on I-20. That is a lot of water.

The damage to homes and property was extensive and by all accounts unavoidable. One potential disaster that was avoided was illness from water contamination. The "Code Red" system in the county was able to contact 124,417 residences to notify them to boil their tap water before use. Good news in a bad situation!