ATLANTA — Monday marks the sixth anniversary of the Epic Floods of 2009, when torrential amounts of rain fell in north Georgia, causing more than $300 million in damage.
The floods claimed ten lives and flooded 20 thousand homes and businesses.
The Chattahoochee River flooded its banks at the R.M. Clayton Water Reclamation Center, where parts of the plant were submerged under twelve feet of water, sending raw sewage downstream.
In a recent report published in February, the city of Atlanta estimated approximately $56 million of damage at that facility alone.
While major repairs and upgrades have been done to the plant since the flood, one seemingly obvious project to raise the flood wall has yet to be completed.
Kent Frantz, senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service, showed Severe Weather Team 2's Meteorologist Katie Walls how high the Chattahoochee must be for the facility to flood, using his state-of-the-art flood inundation mapping system he's building with the Corps of Engineers.
Frantz uses the water height at the nearest river gauge in Vinings 3 miles upstream from the plant.
According to Frantz, water begins flooding over the earthen flood berm at R.M Clayton WRC just over 25 feet. That height has occurred five times in the last 130 years: 1886, 1901, 1919, 1946, 2009.
"Most recently in '09, we got about 28.1 feet on the Vinings gauge, so that indicates that it would've topped the berm somewhere between 1 to 2.5 feet deep," explains Frantz.
Walls asked Frantz how much higher the berm should be to protect the plant.
"About 3 1/2 or so feet higher than what they already have. That would give them a more level of protection up to the flood of record," replied Frantz.
The Federal Emergency Management Administration agreed to fund an addition of three feet to the flood berm, estimated at a total cost of $772,500. FEMA would reimburse the city for 75 percent of that; the other 25 percent would come from other means.
FEMA told Walls that funding was made available last December, but as of Thursday, the berm has not been raised.
Walls questioned Lillian Govus, director of communications for the city of Atlanta's Department of Watershed Management.
"Why wouldn't the flood wall be raised if it's happened three times in the last 100 years? That could prevent a lot of damage from recurring. Why hasn't it been done yet?"Walls asked Govus.
"That is a question that we've got to leave to the legal experts," Govus said.
The city's insurance carrier provided $11 million to the city for damage done to the plant, but the city is in the midst of suing its insurance carrier for an additional $35.5 million. Because of this litigation, Walls received no straightforward answers from the city's spokesperson.
According to Anne Torres, director of communications for the Mayor's Office, "We cannot comment on active litigation."
Michelle Martin, who lives less than a mile from the plant, is upset the wall hasn't been raised.
"I'm not buying the 'it's all caught up in litigation'. No. It needs to get done. We as taxpayers deserve that," says Martin. "I'm outraged. It makes me want to leave Fulton County. I'm just tired of empty promises."
Her neighbor Aaron Gray questions why so much money has been put into upgrades and improvements when they could be wiped out with another major flooding event.
"To me it makes sense to protect your investment and not make upgrades that are going to be eroded or erased after a big flood," says Gray.