The flood that changed Macon, 30 years later

Those who lived on higher ground still grasp to understand those of us who endured that long ago summer when the river got too close and personal. 

They cannot fathom the damage the flood did, the hardships it caused and the silver linings it left behind.

They look at us with a disconnect when we start telling our stories about the Great Flood of 1994. They act as if we are holding them against their will, making them watch home movies on an old projector.

Looking back, it all seemed surreal. Now it has the look and feel of fake news, of bizarre photoshopped images from another time and place. The tales are as tall as the ones our grandfathers told about walking to school in the snow. Uphill. Barefooted.

Boats floating through the intersection of Pierce Avenue and Riverside Drive? A fish in the outfield at Luther Williams Field? Downtown sidewalks wearing the temporary crown of the port-a-potties capital of the universe?

 No, those who were not around a generation ago do not share those same sufferings that flow beside our banks of memories. The rising waters intruded because the rivers and streams had nowhere to go. The flooding invaded our space. It turned street signs into buoys and parking lots into spillways. Bridges and roads were swept away, and houses were stained with muddy watermarks on the walls where family portraits once hung.

It was called the Great Flood of ‘94. But the only thing great about it was its magnitude. 

The flooding in Middle and South Georgia killed 34 people, forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes and caused an estimated $1 billion in property damage. 

It was the worst natural disaster in state history. There are those who  still keep a 96-page book written about the “flood of the century” at arm’s reach. Never forget.

The floodwaters are long gone but the floodplain never fully receded. The reminders are everywhere. I hug one every day. His name is Jake. He is our youngest son.

Jake arrived in the world the second week of January in 1994. The next six months kept the history books hopping. Two weeks after Jake was born, I was assigned to cover the first Super Bowl played in Atlanta. That spring, Richard Nixon and Jackie Kennedy Onassis died. Michael Jackson married Elvis’s daughter. By the time the calendar rolled over to summer, O.J. Simpson had gone for a drive in a white Bronco. 

The first week of July was no less eventful. The movie “Forrest Gump’’ premiered and quickly became one of my favorites. Amazon made its debut and became more than just a river in South America, but the biggest brand on the planet. 

And then it started to rain. And rain. And rain.

Jake was six months old and wearing diapers, so he was too young to remember when the Ocmulgee River surged to an estimated 35 feet, nearly twice its normal flood stage. 

The Ocmulgee is not mighty, like the Mississippi nor exotic, like the Nile. Nor is it lazy, like the St. Johns in Florida, one of only three rivers in the U.S. that flow north.

The Ocmulgee comes from the words of the Hitchiti tribe, meaning “bubbling waters.’’ 

That first week of July 1994, it wasn’t just bubbling. It was cresting, with angry whitecaps, racing toward the deep end.

Two weeks ago, a memory trigger showed up on our radar when Tropical Storm Alberto, the season’s first named storm, formed over the Gulf of Mexico. 

Wait a minute. Alberto?  Did he come back from the dead, like Lazarus?

We collectively wondered if history could repeat itself. The Alberto of 1994 also was the season’s first tropical storm. He swept ashore along the Florida Panhandle near Destin on July 3, rode a zipline to Alabama, took a giant U-turn into Georgia and squatted like an unwanted house guest.

  There have been plenty of drought-filled summers, this one included, when more than a foot of rain would have been greeted with a parade. But it had been an unusually wet June. The ground was saturated. The creeks and rivers were swollen. The lakes were bloated. There was nowhere for the water to run, except downhill and across a defenseless border into the midstate and on into southwest Georgia.

A city block from the building where I once worked, we watched as members of a prison detail stacked sandbags at the foot of the Otis Redding Bridge. The century-old bricks at the old Washburn Moving and Storage Company became an impromptu dam as the river climbed the banks, saving downtown from serious flooding.

However, the levee in Central City Park was no match for the volume of water. It crashed the gates at Luther Williams Field, the second-oldest minor league ballpark in the country. When the floodwaters subsided, a carp was found in the outfield, giving new meaning to the phrase “catch of the day.’’ (A year later, in that same outfield, Andruw Jones played his first season of professional baseball with the Class A Macon Braves.)

Not to diminish the pain and suffering from the loss of lives and property downstream along the Ocmulgee, Oconee and Flint, the biggest fallout in our city came from the flooding of the Macon Water Authority’s water treatment plant. It was
situated along the oxbow of the river at what is now Amerson River  Park.

Heavy flooding shut down the local water supply, leaving more than 150,000 Macon residents without water to fill their bathtubs and kitchen sinks. 

Imagine the paradox of being surrounded by water, then having to survive almost three weeks with little or no access to it. We drew water from  wells and swimming pools to wash clothes and flush toilets. We learned to take sponge baths and became accustomed to the lingering aroma of porta-potties. We filled containers with water rationed by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency at shopping centers and designated fire stations.

To this day, I never take running water for granted.

There are plenty of silver linings that have followed us forward. Gateway Park opened. The Ocmulgee Heritage Greenway and riverwalk became a reality. 

So did Amerson River Park, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary next year. The 180-acre park has become a recreational showcase, with walking trails, a nice playground, pavilion and picnic areas, kayaking, canoeing and tubing and breathtaking views of the river from the high bluffs.

The treatment facility relocated and the water authority opened the 625-acre Town Creek reservoir and Javors Lucas Lake, a 6.5 billion gallon body of water in southwest Jones County. 

The results of the transition soon poured in. The American Water Works Association awarded Macon first place in the nation in 2009 in its “Best of the Best Drinking Water Taste Test.’’ And last week, for the second straight year, Macon was recognized as having the best-tasting drinking water in the state by the Georgia Section of the American Water Works. 

So when the old-timers start reminiscing about the summer when Noah’s ark could have been spotted floating near Spring Street, and the river nearly swallowed us, let them keep talking.

In the end, it’s a story of resilience, and we’re still telling it 30 years later. It’s part of who we are.

Ed Grisamore has been a journalist in Macon and Middle Georgia for more than 45 years. He received the 2024 John Holliman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. He was the recipient of the 2010 Will Rogers Humanitarian Award, presented by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Grisamore has won first-place awards from the Georgia Press Association in five categories and has written nine books.