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iGo GflEEN
YOUR GUIDE FOR AN ECO-FRIENDLY LIFESTYLE
PLANNING FOR A WETTER FUTURE
Above the Waterline
Sally Bethea
win a pile of old papers, I found my
fathers rain charts from the 1960s and ‘70s:
meticulously-recorded measurements from
the rain gauge in our backyard. The numbers
tell the weather story of those decades; it was
very wet in Atlanta (70-plus inches in one
year) and throughout the Southeast.
But the rains of my childhood were
steady, soaking events that rarely resulted
in topped riverbanks or massive damage.
There were not the deluges, with extensive
flooding, that were now experiencing,
thanks to a changing climate and watersheds
hardened with roads, rooftops and parking
lots.
Kent Frantz also remembers those rainy
years and the water that was “always around
him,” growing up in Louisville, Ky. These
early experiences led him to the Navy where
he trained in aerography (the production of
weather charts) and then to a 40-year career
with the National Weather Service (NWS) as
a senior hydrologist.
Atlanta’s Epic Storm
I recently visited Kent at the NWS
Forecast Office in Peachtree City to talk
about El Nino (expected to continue
bringing abnormally heavy rains this winter)
and to learn about the flood inundation
maps that his team developed with the
Corps of Engineers and U.S. Geological
Survey.
After Hurricane Floyds devastation of
the East Coast in 1999, the NWS created the
Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service to
help emergency managers plan for weather-
induced disasters with new mapping tools to
predict the location and extent of flooding
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Ten years after Floyd, the Atlanta
region experienced a catastrophic flood in
September of2009, the result of multiple
days of prolonged (El Nino-induced) rainfall
that fell faster than local watersheds could
handle. Property damage exceeded $300
million, 20,000 homes and buildings were
harmed, and 10 people lost their lives.
At the city’s largest sewage plant - built
in a vulnerable, low-lying area along the
Chattahoochee in the 1930s - the earthen
berm between the river and the facility
was topped when the river crested at more
than 28 feet. For weeks, the R.M. Clayton
plant was submerged under up to 15 feet of
water and raw sewage poured into Atlanta’s
drinking water source.
Sewage Plant Could Flood Again
In the years following the 2009 flood,
the city repaired and upgraded the Clayton
plant. Kent and his colleagues completed
flood inundation maps to predict future
impacts in four developed watersheds in the
Atlanta region.
But the berm - the barrier to keep
the river out of the plant - was not raised
as recommended by federal emergency
managers, even after they offered to pay
75 percent of the $772,000 total project
cost, according to local news reports. The
city’s share would be less than $200,000
to safeguard the sewage plant and the
Chattahoochee River.
Last fall, WSB-TV’s Katie Walls asked
a city representative, on camera, why
action had not been taken to fix the serious
problem. The response: “That is a question
that we’ve got to leave to the legal experts.”
(The city is engaged in litigation with its
insurance company over the settlement for
the disaster that occurred six years ago).
The weather of the 1960s is not likely to
return any time soon, if ever again. Heavier
downpours and flooding, already observed,
will become increasingly common,
according to weather and climate experts.
We can use state-of-the art forecasting
tools to prepare for the future by raising
berms and keeping development out of low-
lying areas. Or we can let lawyers handle the
weather and manage our risks.
I know which solution I prefer. 03
To view the Flood Inundation Maps, see
weather.gov/atlanta and click on Rivers/Lakes
(National Weather Service) orga.water.usgs.
gov/fim/ (USGS).
Sally Bethea is the retired executive
director of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper
(chattahoochee.org), a nonprofit
environmental organization whose mission
is to protect and restore the drinking water
supply for nearly four million people.
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