Coastal Georgia mops up after historic rainfall, flooding from Tropical Storm Debby
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WABE and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
The sun was finally shining again on Thursday in Savannah’s Tremont Park, but the aftermath of days and days of rainfall was still obvious.
Most paths into this small neighborhood on the city’s west side were still closed. Water sloshed halfway across the road that was open and water lines on most houses showed how high the flooding reached.
“Down here was like Savannah beach,” said Queen Winn of the tropical storm that gave her a waterfront home she never wanted.
She’s lived in Tremont Park since the 1950s and said it floods in most bad storms, when the drainage canal near her house overflows. But Tropical Storm Debby took her by surprise.
“If it was thundering and lightning and hard rain and the wind was blowing, I would have left, but it was just like a regular, casual rain,” Winn said. “But by the time I got off the porch looking at the rain and went inside the house for a few minutes and came back out, boom, we was flooded.”
Winn was lucky; years ago, after the house she grew up in flooded over and over again, she built a new one higher off the ground. So the floodwater from this storm reached around the fourth step up to her porch but never made it inside. Others in this neighborhood had to be rescued by boat.
Just up the street, Peggy Butler’s house flooded. She stayed elsewhere during the storm because her place had flooded before. This time, she’ll at least need to replace the floors. It’s an ongoing cycle that she said gets expensive.
“We’re in the hurricane season, so fixing up your house, you don’t know if another hurricane, another storm going to come and it’s going to undo what you just did,” said Butler. “So it’s like you’re losing money.”
Flood insurance, too, is expensive, Butler said, especially since she’s had to make repeated claims for flooding caused by this overflowing drainage ditch.
Both women were frustrated and angry that the city hadn’t fixed what was clearly a persistent problem. In a press conference this week, Savannah City Manager Jay Melder said the city is planning stormwater work in Tremont Park.
“That has been our No. 1 place where we needed some infrastructure improvements,” Melder said. “In fact, [the] mayor and city council and the Assistant City Manager Heath Lloyd made those investments actually in the last month to be able to start that work.”
Melder said they weren’t able to do the work in time for Debby, “but hopefully we’ll be ahead of it the next time.”
The Tremont Park neighbors said Melder visited them after the storm. They spoke with him and said that was encouraging.
But Winn said she’ll believe help is coming when she sees it.
“I don’t believe in all that talking,” she said. “I believe in action. Show me what you’re doing. I want to see progress.”
In the meantime, she and her neighbors in Tremont Park are cleaning up the damage, hoping their flooded cars will start — and waiting to see what the next storm brings.
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