By Victoria Lemos
Atlanta is a city shaped by water, even if most days we barely notice it. Beneath streets, neighborhoods, highways, and even airports, creeks quietly wind through the landscape, reminders that the city was built in a place where rain has always had somewhere to go. In its 189 years, Atlanta has been forced to face its relationship with water through a myriad of floods. From overflowing creeks and rivers to demolished bridges to submerged homes and automobiles, these floods have repeatedly begged Atlanta to change how it plans and builds and understands the land beneath it.
In early December 1919, six to 12 inches of rain fell across the Chattahoochee River Basin, from West Point to Norcross, causing extensive flooding across the state. While the highest crests—18 feet—were in the Columbus area, Atlanta was not spared.
In the first days of the rain, the battle to save the City’s waterworks began. The pumping station, a facility that moves water from low areas to higher drainage systems, was located on the Chattahoochee River and protected by a dyke, an earthen or concrete embankment designed to hold back water. According to the Atlanta Journal, 110 men, including 75 who were incarcerated—a stark reminder of Atlanta’s reliance on the chain gang system—rushed to the pumping station where the river was already above the danger mark. They worked into the night, building a temporary dirt embankment to hold back the 32 foot high waterline, which was four feet higher than the previous record and two feet higher than the existing dyke.
Tributary creeks across the city also flooded. At the Brookhaven Country Club, a manmade lake was swept into Nancy Creek after a dam broke. Three concrete bridges were destroyed: one on Piedmont Avenue over Peachtree Creek and two on Wiueca Road. City officials estimated $200,000 in bridge and culvert damages alone. Crossing Utoy Creek on a Cascade Road bridge, an automobile carrying five people plummeted into the rushing waters. Three passengers died: Roy Wilson, J.C. Clements, and Irene Lawrence. This photo shows the aftermath of the tragedy.
In August 1926, Atlanta was hit with a cloudburst that brought nearly three inches of rain in one hour—just under half an inch shy of the record set in 1914. A cloudburst is a sudden and highly localized downpour of rain that can overwhelm drainage systems and cause landslides and flash floods. As the world gets warmer, air holds more moisture, which means storms can dump larger amounts of rain in a shorter time.
On this date, 8-year-old James Cleveland was playing in a large pool of water in Candler Park, near Iverson and Candler streets, when a wall of water suddenly swept down the street, creating a rushing whirlpool and pulling him into a storm sewer. He was carried a block away to an open culvert, where two friends jumped in and pulled him to safety.
A few miles to the east, the cloudburst marooned a dozen families on their roofs or other high ground while household goods, chickens, rabbits, and even dogs and cats were swept away in the current. Water from four directions drained into a low-lying area where Lovejoy and Hunnicutt streets intersect Downtown, which, in the ’20s, was called Buttermilk Bottom. Whirlpools formed over clogged sewer drains and trapped 15 Black residents who had to be rescued by two fire department companies. The flooding subsided after firefighters opened up nearby manholes, allowing the water to slowly recede.
A cloudburst in October 1949 dropped two and a half inches of rain in 30 minutes. This Bell Street scene was captured in the local newspaper.
Throughout history, Black residents have been forced to live in low-lying, flood-prone areas. A neighborhood then known as Buttermilk Bottom—in the Atlanta Civic Center area, near Chestnut, Baker, and Butler streets—suffered disproportionately from repeated flooding.
In July 1955, Atlanta was hit with another cloudburst. Across the city, sewer pipes could not handle the volume of water: Creeks rose, basements flooded, and cars on the Northeast Expressway were submerged. A lake that was six feet deep formed near Grady Hospital. A man named Winslow Jones died after being swept into a sewer; authorities recovered his body three miles downstream.
After the rains subsided, Buttermilk Bottom was effectively overlooked by relief crews and city workers. The storm happened on a Saturday; by Monday, still no cleanup crews had arrived. When pressed, City officials said the crews had “overlooked” Buttermilk Bottom. The Red Cross only learned about it after people went to local churches for help, prompting the establishment of a temporary emergency disaster headquarters in the basement of Mt. Zion Church on Piedmont Avenue. More than 200 people were given clothing, food, and money.
Floods had carved gullies into unpaved streets; water bubbled up through residents’ floors, poured through windows, clogged sewers, and left pools of stagnant water. “The odor down there is pretty terrible,” said a Department of Public Health engineer at the time. “We intend to keep checking the area and have garbage disposal people take a look. We also will get mosquito men in there to spray the pools of stagnant water.”
The photo on the left shows residents of Buttermilk Bottom dragging out mattresses and bedding, attempting to dry and salvage what little they could after the flood waters subsided. The second photo shows a similar scene after a flood in Buttermilk Bottom; this one, nearly a decade later.
In February 1961, a powerful storm system swept across Georgia, turning the normally mild Peachtree Creek into a raging river. The Chattahoochee also flooded, causing severe damages in Columbus. In Atlanta alone, more than five-and-a-half inches of rain fell in just 24 hours, overwhelming creeks and infrastructure. Along Peachtree Creek, on Woodward Way and Peachtree Battle Circle, residents were trapped by rising water levels, and 20 to 30 families had to be evacuated by boat. The photos above show the destruction that Peachtree Creek inflicted on the surrounding areas.
Damage was widespread across the city: Power poles were knocked down, trees toppled, and as many as 7,000 residents were left without electricity. On Washington Road, just outside College Park, a dam holding the 20-acre Judy’s Lake gave way, sending a surge of water downstream that washed out two bridges. In the aftermath, neighbors waded into what remained of Judy’s Lake. One person standing on the bed of the lake picked up a 10-pound bass from the shallow waters with their bare hands.
In March 1975 and March 1976, Atlanta was hit with hard rains that flooded parts of Fulton and DeKalb counties, with severe damage in the area of Peachtree Creek. In 1975, Chattahoochee River crested three feet above what was considered a flood; Peachtree Creek crested at well over 19 feet, six feet above flood stage. Total losses across the metro rose to $1.7 million. The following year, Peachtree Creek again crested at nearly two and a half feet, and as many as 100 homes along its shores suffered property damage. In total, 33 roads in DeKalb County and 10 streets in Atlanta were closed.
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