Chatham County, Savannah officials knew flooding could be 'historic' early in week

At Tuesday’s weekly press conference, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson praised city workers and departments for the response to the “historic” flooding event caused when the Ogeechee and Canoochee rivers overflowed their banks after Tropical Storm Debby moved through Georgia, dropping more than 10 inches of rain on already saturated landscapes from drenching storms the week before. The tally, according to Johnson:

• 473 citizens and 48 pets rescued between Friday, Aug. 9, and Sunday, Aug. 11
• 413 calls to the city’s 311 help line ; 277 service requests issued

“In emergencies, you have to do what takes care of the most people,” Mayor Johnson said.

Over the weekend, though, residents stranded in Bradley Point and Teal Lake in the city’s far southwest corner expressed they had not been given enough warning or information to prepare for the extent and swiftness of the flooding.

As previously reported, several longtime residents in Bradley Point said that they had not received direct communication from city or emergency response officials about the City of Savannah’s road-closure announcement on Friday, which called for residents “to leave or shelter in place until the roadway is reopened when the water levels recede.”

Another longtime resident of Middle Landing Road said that when he received Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) alerts ( smart911.com/smart911/ref/reg.action?pa=chathamcounty ) on his phone, he prepared by moving furniture and other items to higher ground as he had done in the past when the river rose. The roll of water he experienced, however, was nothing he had ever seen in 50 years of living on the Ogeechee River.

"It's up to the mailbox:" Severe flooding swamps Savannah's Bradley Point neighborhood

"Everything I got is underwater." This Chatham community is flooded, yet it gets little attention

Totals: The 4-day rainfall totals for Savannah, Rincon and others hit by Tropical Storm Debby

Chatham County and city officials knew flooding could be ‘historic’ early in week

At the Tuesday press conference, Mayor Johnson said that the city “really got the alarm” on Friday. “We saw the river rising, and we were like, ‘Uh-oh.’ As soon as we know, we told people.”

According to CEMA Director Dennis Jones, however, modeling predictions showed that the river flooding would be “historic” and Chatham County’s command policy group — comprised of mayors and managers of all municipalities, the chairman of the county commission, the superintendent of the public school system, and the director of public health — met four times ahead of Tropical Storm Debby to discuss and plan for its potential impacts.

“When we started meeting, the specific focus was on the weather conditions and what we could expect,” said Jones. “We knew there was going to be flooding. We didn’t know to what extent until Saturday or Sunday, but we knew that the storm was coming.”

The command policy group determined evacuation orders, even for specific parts of the county, were not required. “We were evaluating what the flood impacts compared to the tidal sequence could be, and making those determinations,” said Jones. “Again, we didn’t realize that this was going to be historic until the National Weather Service advised us on that.”

Hurricane threats are “really the only times where we have issued evacuation orders in the past,” Jones said, adding “we’re not going to force people out of their home just for a significant flooding event. The area of potential impact for the county is significant enough that people along the river, they receive flooding all the time… We know people are very, very resilient in our community, and we didn’t anticipate that the levels would get to what they are at this particular time.”

At the Tuesday press conference, Mayor Johnson echoed Jones’s comments. “Most of the homes out there are not impacted. Matter of fact, relatively few of them, in relation, were structurally flooded. They maintained electricity. It was really a hunker-down situation.”

He said the call to not require evacuations in the high-flood-prone areas was “right on.”

“If we called a mandatory evacuation, some of the people that are complaining now would have complained that we were making them leave.”

Reliance on social media and technology leaves gaps in emergency communications

Georgia counties are responsible for coordinating emergency responses and communications in extreme weather events. CEMA serves as the distribution point for watches, warnings and advisories from the National Weather Service and Chatham County-specific notifications. In its efforts to try to reach as many people as possible, Jones explained that CEMA relies heavily on social media platforms such as Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter), email and text alerts (which residents must sign up for), and televised and streamed press conferences. Municipal partners, such as the City of Savannah and its public safety departments, also help spread the word.

Jones said he recognized “that the message is not getting out to everyone, and what we do with every emergency, every disaster, is we try and determine what those gaps are so that we can try and maximize that distribution method.”

Sometimes that means police officers driving down streets and announcing warnings and shelter-in-place notifications, as was done in the Chatham Crescent neighborhood as Debby moved into the area and caused flooding along Habersham Street. The city also encourages residents to sign up for text alerts at savannahga.gov/AlertCenter.aspx?CID=Emergency-Alerts-1 .

“I understand their frustrations. We were all frustrated,” said Johnson when asked about residents’ concerns that they were not better informed. “We do the best we can. When we have emergency situations, we act in an emergency posture.”

This article is based on reporting by Richard Burkhart, John Deem, Drew Favakeh, Evan Lasseter and Joseph Schwartzburt.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Chatham County, Savannah officials knew flooding could be 'historic' early in week