COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Contractors have been working to resolve issues in Cobb County's Coopers Creek neighborhood after multiple homes were flooded and damaged on Tuesday night, officials said.
Cobb County Communications Director Ross Cavitt said that the first contractor was a tree company that was removing trees that were in danger of falling on some houses and then clearing the debris from the area culvert. This is so the second group of contractors can then get in and start making repairs on the damaged drainage lines, Cavitt stated.
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However, residents who live in the cul-de-sac that flooded on Tuesday said that this wasn't the first they've had issues. They told 11Alive that it all began in January.
Rith McMeans said that it started with standing water.
"It first started with water standing and our trashcans kind of floating," McMeans recalled.
She said once they started noticing the issues, they reached out to the county for help.
Cavitt said that crews came out during a smaller flooding incident in March and that when they investigated the infrastructure, they found that, at that time, it was working properly.
But McMeans disagreed with this assessment and said the issues continued.
“And literally the next day or a day or two after that, we had the same issue again,” she recalled.
Now, McMeans said the County "dropped the ball."
“We have residents that are displaced. Children who are starting school within a week have nothing to start school with, and homeowners who are in awe on what they’re going to do next,” she said.
But the county said that's not its jurisdiction. According to Cavitt, when the rain fell earlier this week, it was debris that was in the culvert -- a little creek -- behind the subdivision that washed in and clogged the county's drainage pipes. He said that it's privately owned.
"So obviously, there was something going on with the creek there, but that was privately owned," Cavitt stated. "As the county DOT and water system, we don’t have the ability or the right to go on private property to clean up privately owned creeks or culverts or drainage ditches or anything like that. So all we can do is make sure our infrastructure is operating efficiently or properly to make sure these things don’t happen."
McMeans and others in the community said they want the County to help.
“Fix the issue,” McMeans said. “And they also need to reimburse everybody in this cul-de-sac for all the damages we experienced.”
Cobb County said it’s investigating.
“We’re investigating certainly upstream from here if there’s a new development that’s changed the stormwater system in the way the water flows,” Cavitt said. “But in the meantime, we can make our infrastructure work properly and just go from there.”
Cavitt said crews are expected to start repairs on the two drainage lines on Thursday or Friday.