Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 19, 1990 TAG: 9003222423
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ELBA, ALA. LENGTH: Medium
Water from nearly non-stop rain Thursday and Friday also swelled rivers and streams in Georgia, where authorities blamed flooding for four deaths in auto accidents.
Some Alabama rivers were expected to crest at 20 feet or more above flood level today or Tuesday, while some rivers in southern Georgia were not expected to crest until Friday, the National Weather Service said.
Hardest hit was Elba, where an earthen levee ruptured Saturday along the Pea River. On Sunday, though the river was one of the few starting to recede in the state, water still nipped at downtown rooftops, 1,500 of the city's 4,400 people were homeless and roads, homes, schools and businesses were paralyzed.
Elba Mayor Fred Moore estimated the cleanup would cost millions of dollars.
"I've never seen anything like it," said U.S. Rep. Bill Dickinson, who toured the devastated area by helicopter Sunday. "I cannot begin to imagine everything that's been lost or damaged."
As much as 16 inches of rain fell in southern Alabama on Thursday and Friday. Dry weather Saturday and Sunday did little to diminish the devastation.
Most southern Alabama rivers continued rising today as flood waters drained toward the Gulf of Mexico, a National Weather Service official said.
Authorities reported about 500 people were forced from their homes in the Montgomery area as the muddy Alabama River rose to 19 feet above flood stage.
In Selma, about 200 people fled their homes as the river headed toward the level reached in a record Hardest hit was Elba, where an earthen levee ruptured Saturday along the Pea River. On Sunday, though the river was one of the few starting to recede in the state, water still nipped at downtown rooftops, 1,500 of the city's 4,400 people were homeless and roads, homes, schools and businesses were paralyzed. 1961 flood. Hundreds more could be evacuated by Tuesday afternoon when the river is expected to crest 13 feet above flood level, said emergency management director Warren Rhoades.
The Choctawhatchee River was 21 feet above flood stage in the southeast Alabama town of Newton, about 30 miles east of Elba. Sheriff's deputies said some 500 people had been forced from their homes since Friday in Newton and surrounding Dale County.
Evacuations in five other counties brought the total number of people forced from their homes to more than 3,700, authorities said.
The waters in Elba appeared to have receded perhaps a foot or two on Sunday, but a swift current continued to flow swiftly through a 100-foot hole on the north side of the levee and back into the Pea River through a large crack on the south side.
The water was up to the windows of Lela Wilson's one-story home, which she moved into about a week ago.
"It hurts. It honestly hurts. It seems like everything you work for you wind up losing," she said.
Col. Larry Bonine, the district engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers in Mobile, said it was too early to determine what caused the levee to rupture.
About 45 miles downstream in Geneva, emergency workers shored up another levee and continued evacuating residents. At least 450 people were forced out there.
State troopers said six people drowned Friday night in Covington County when a car fell into a rain-swollen creek where a bridge had washed out.
Two more people met a similar fate Saturday night in neighboring Escambia County, and a third man died there when he walked into a flooded area to check on his parents.
Another man was found dead in his car in Prichard on Sunday morning on a road that had been barricaded since Friday due to 7-foot-deep water, police said.
In Georgia, authorities expected the Ocmulgee River to crest at 12 feet above flood level today in Macon. The Flint River is expected to crest at about 11 feet above flood level by Friday in Albany.
The Georgia State Patrol blamed the heavy rain and floods for car crashes that killed three people near Lumpkin on Saturday and one woman in Henry County late Friday night.
by CNB