Putting the pieces together

Family works to clean, fix damaged home after July flood

By Craig Colgan
The Battle Creek Enquirer
September 7, 1994

LEESBURG, Ga. — Marcia Waitzman said visiting family in her home town of Battle Creek with her two children was fun and relaxing, pretty much what she needed.

In July, the Waitzmans, of Georgia, visited Marcia’s mother Barbara Jones and sister Louanne Flathaue, Battle Creek residents, and another sister in Grand Rapids.

“We saw the hot air balloons, the kids rode horses — it was just a good time,” she said.

The one night, the phone rang. It was her husband, Paul, calling from their Leesburg home, just outside of the Georgia city of Albany. Waitzman told her that the water level in Kinchefoonee Creek, located just beyond their back yard, was predicted to rise but that he thought everything would be all right.

Tropical Storm Alberto had blown through, dumping over 20 inches of rain in 24 hours, but the sun was out and things looked fine, he said.

‘No way to prepare’

It was Wednesday, Juiy 6.

More than a month later, standing in what is left of their home, the couple are still at a loss to describe what happened next, and how it could have happened.

The water had come up before, halfway up the back yard once in 1990. The guy who sold them their house five years ago told them water had never been in the house, built in the early ‘60s. “If this house floods, half of Albany will be under water,” he told them.

A wise man.

“The Flood of ‘94,” as headline writers throughout the area like to call it, ended up damaging 12,000 homes in Georgia, Florida and Alabama, destroying more than 5,000.

The Waitzmans’ home, 2,300 square feet with three bedrooms, a built-in pool out front and lots of pretty landscaping, barely survived.

The roof is solid and the walls still stand, but everything inside is gone.

Paul Waitzman was able to move a few things to safety before the waters reached the house, but the flood reduced the interior to a gigantic trash heap of drenched, putrid-smelling insulation, sheet rock from the ceiling, ruined appliances, clothing and more.

“There was no way to prepare for this,” she said. “No way.”

Evacuated by boat

Following the storm, the weather was beautiful; but that didn’t mean the danger had passed. It takes awhile for those living along the creek to feel the total affect of a big rain storm, he explained.

He and his neighbors learned that in a big way as the water began to rise quickly, and without mercy, after he had phoned his wife while she was visiting in Michigan.

By 1 a.m. July 7, the water was chest high in the road out front and about 2 feet deep inside the house.

Paul Waitzman and his neighbors were evacuated by a sheriff’s boat to a large National Guard truck on higher ground at about 2:30 a.m., just after all the power in the neighborhood went dead.

“We could hear people calling for help on roofs tops up and down the street,” he said.

In the darkness and confusion, the family cat jumped out of his arms and disappeared.

One-bedroom housing

Paul could not return home for several days because a bridge was flooded. But on Sunday, July 10, he saw for the first time the destructive force of a flood.

Every house in the neighborhood was seriously damaged and a few were destroyed.

The water had reached 11 feet up the side of the Waitzman’s house. The garage, where Marcia, a primary school teacher, runs a ficture-framing business, was also gutted.

She returned from Michigan two days later, but only after taking the children to relatives in North Carolina, where they stayed for a couple weeks.

“I couldn’t stand throwing everything out of their rooms with them here,” she said.

So began several weeks of 12-hour days, slogging through the mess, shoveling out debris and tearing out the walls.

The Waitzmans sprayed disinfectant throughout the home. The family is staying in a one-bedroom apartment they said they felt lucky to get.

Paul Waitzman, an engineer at Martin-Marietta in nearby Americus, figures the family is “about $70,000 to $80,000 shy” of what it will take to re-build and replace their possessions, even after insurance.

The family has had cleanup help from many volunteers, donations of essential household goods from the American Red Cross, and is now waiting to see if the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration can come close to filling in the financial gaps.

The process is slow. But the couple is amazingly calm and focused on what is ahead. And there are good signs.

As the couple showed a visitor around their now empty home the mail arrived.

“It’s a check!,” Marcia exclaimed. “From State Farm! It’s for $14.30. We’re saved.!”

It was apparently some sort of dividend on another policy.

Then she turned serious and revealed some truly good news. The family cat returned a few days ago, more than a month after the flood. When it showed up in the front yard, the entire family took it as a good sign.

“We have good days and bad,” she said. “That one-bedroom apartment is a major lifestyle change. the middle class was fun while it lasted.

“We’ll be fine,” she said.

Craig Colgan, a Michigan native, is a writer based in Washington, D.C. This article, written while Colgan was a freelancer based in Florida, appeared in the Sept. 7, 1994 edition of the Battle Creek Enquirer. ©1994, 2024 by Craig Colgan.