Insurance agents in north Georgia are reporting widespread damage after record flooding hit the area Thursday, Nov. 5.
“It’s devastating. I have cried and prayed and cried and prayed,” said an agent who answered the phone at Appalachian Insurance Services in Blue Ridge, Georgia, near the Tennessee line.
Some property owners carried flood insurance but most did not, because the town has not seen flooding of this scale in decades, agents said.
Cody Webb, an agent at Mountain Insurance in Blue Ridge, said his office escaped damage. Multiple policyholders have contacted the agency, but most did not have flood coverage.
“People were expecting rain, but no one expected this much,” Webb said Friday morning.
As much as 10 inches of rain fell overnight Wednesday between Blue Ridge and Ellijay, and runoff quickly overwhelmed streams and rivers in the area, the Associated Press and other news outlets reported.
The storms dumped rain all across the mountainous area that drains into the Toccoa River, which flows between Copperhill, Tennessee, and McCaysville, Georgia. The Toccoa flows into the Ocoee River, where the Tennessee Valley Authority said it was managing high water levels at three hydroelectric dams, according to the AP.
The Toccoa reached a record high Thursday morning at 18 feet, a river gauge showed, and the waters completely submerged some homes and buildings, the AP and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. At least 57 people were rescued before the floodwaters began to recede, the Fannin County Emergency Management Agency in Georgia said.
It was the second flood in McCaysville this year. In August, a flash flood from mountain rains and runoff damaged the police station and post office as well as a number of homes and businesses. The renovated police station had reopened just the week before, the AP noted.
After two floods in three months, “I don’t know what God is trying to tell me,” Police Chief Michael Early told the AP.
Shelby Patterson, a commercial lines agent at The Insurance Mart who lives in McCaysville, said at least four policyholders had reported heavy damage from the flood. Two of them had flood coverage.
“But two only had homeowners’ insurance, and they are freaking out,” Patterson said.
The flooding brought loads of mud and silt into buildings in McCaysville and Blue Ridge. After the waters receded, residents were seen carrying bucket after bucket of mud out of homes. Another resident’s propane tank exploded, compounding the damage left by floodwaters, Patterson noted.
Dickey McCay Insurance agency in Copperhill, just across the river, was closed Friday due to the flooding. A voicemail directed policyholders to call a claims-handling phone number or to report claims directly to their carriers.
One adjuster firm, All American Public Adjusters, has offices in McCaysville, though its manager was in Pensacola, Florida, still working wind claims from Hurricane Isaias, which struck the Pensacola area on October 9. The back-to-back disasters left the region’s insurance and claims infrastructure stretched thin at a critical moment for affected residents.
