ALBANY, GA. -- Residents of this quiet city never worried much about the Flint River. It's not mighty like the Mississippi, and it hadn't flooded since 1925. No one imagined it might rise to 44 feet one day, turning streets into lakes and destroying homes they had worked a lifetime to build. It happened so fast that Carolyn Johnson, 73, only had time to grab her insulin and a loaf of bread before racing to the car of her son-in-law, Henry Lee, to escape with several family members. Henry Lee planned to return for Johnson's 91-year-old mother and others, but the river rose so swiftly that police had to rescue them by boat. Several blocks to the south, Arthur White's family fled their house with some clothes, the television set and a video game. They figure that's all they have now, unless the money jar wedged behind a bed was somehow spared.
Once neighbors here in the mostly black, largely poor southside, the two families found shelter next to each other in a Red Cross facility at a local school. "I've never been in a situation like this," said Johnson, whose husband of 49 years died only four months ago and whose three-bedroom house, bought in 1968, was submerged.
She was among thousands displaced during two weeks of flooding in Georgia, Florida and Alabama, the result of a freak storm that dumped record amounts of rain. Twenty-nine people died, most washed away in fast-moving currents. It was the worst disaster in the history of Georgia, hardest hit of the three states. President Clinton flew here briefly last week and announced $60 million in federal disaster aid. The river raced through Albany, swelling over its banks as it passed through downtown, spilling wildly across the lower-lying neighborhoods. The disaster was quick and unexpected, unlike the great flood of last year, when Midwesterners toiled for months to save their towns from the slow-rising Mississippi. That was a test of perseverance; this was a sudden shock to a Bible Belt region where life revolves around church and home.
Johnson is a regular churchgoer, but she hasn't gone since the flood because she doesn't have anything to wear. "Everything I had in the world is in that house," she said quietly. "I don't have anything but Jesus now."
