Storm triggers floods

Patti Dozier

April 02, 2009 06:37 pm

— THOMASVILLE — Thomasville Fire-Rescue and city police rescued stranded residents and a motorist at the height of Thursday’s torrential rain.
An elderly Thomas County woman — surrounded by flood water late Thursday afternoon — was in tears about her road situation.
Thomasville streets began to flood late morning as several inches of rain fell during a short period of time.
Low-lying areas flooded quickly. Storm drains clogged with debris could not get rid of the downfall fast enough, and streets throughout the city, along with the railroad on Broad Street, flooded close to noon.
Also about noon, a volunteer firefighter removing a tree in Meigs was injured. The firefighter was being treated in the Archbold Memorial Hospital emergency room Thursday afternoon.
“He’s got a pretty severe fracture on his leg,” said Chris Jones, Thomas County fire chief.
Jones, also Thomas County emergency management director, did not have a list of Thomas County roads closed because of inclement weather. He referred questions to his office, where no one answered the telephone.
Ilene Connelly, 70, a Dogwood Lane resident, was in tears late Thursday afternoon. Her dirt road was flooded, and she got nowhere when she called county government for help.
“All I got was, ‘Call 911, and we’ll evacuate you.’ That’s well and good. What about my home?” Connelly said.
She said she and her neighbors, many of whom are elderly, have tried for almost four years to get their road fixed. “We could never do it,” Connelly, who was recently widowed, explained.
“Nobody seems to care. They’re treating us like second-class citizens,” she said.
A Thomas County motorist told the Times-Enterprise at 4:35 p.m. that Stewart Road and Ga. 3 between Thomasville and Ochlocknee are closed.
In Grady County, sections of Ga. 112 are closed, along with Lower Cairo, Miller, Big Slough and Ridge roads. County Line Road between Ga. 93 and Spence Road also is closed.
Because of road conditions, Grady County schools will be closed today.
As of Thursday afternoon Thomas County Schools would be open today. If road conditions force closing, an emergency alert system will notify parents, students and school personnel.
Thomasville Fire-Rescue personnel removed people from houses on Parramore Street midday Thursday when flood water rose in the neighborhood.
Police Lt. Eric Hampton helped a woman from her stalled vehicle at Fern and Wright streets. “The water was over the bottom of her door,” the officer explained.
Caution signs were erected at Martin Luther King Drive and Alexander Street and at Clay and Crawford streets when the downpour flooded the intersections.
City crews were kept busy removing debris from clogged storm drains throughout the city.
The nasty onslaught of weather was delivered by a series of large storms that developed over the Pacific Ocean and moved east. The first onslaught was Saturday.
“The last couple of storms stalled over us,” said Mark Wool, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, Fla. “We’ll be under the gun again Sunday and Sunday night.”
Since Saturday and through noon Thursday, the weather service recorded nine inches of rain, Wool said.
The storms are intense and deep, with more energy and rain and chances of severe thunderstorms.
Strong jet streams, coupled with cold weather to the north and warm weather in South Georgia and North Florida, make ideal storm conditions.
Another round is on tap for next Thursday.
“It hasn’t happened like this in several years,” Wool said.

Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 220.

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