The Weather Channel’s ‘Storm Stories’ explores the 2009 Georgia Floods

Jim Cantore

, looked right in its own backyard to explore the 2009 Atlanta floods last fall. Ten people lost their lives and thousands lost their homes.

The half-hour special, using re-enactments and interviews with the key players and debuting Saturday at 8:30 p.m., focused on two harrowing stories of people trapped in high waters, one on a river in Douglas County, another on I-20.

Josh Chandler and his sister on Sept. 20 had to take his one-year-old daughter to the hospital for an allergic reaction. They drove onto a bridge just as flood waters were hitting it hard. A major current knocked the car into the guard rail, then pushed it over, plummeting them into the river. "I thought we were gone," said his sister Shanice Daniel.

The car got lodged in some trees, allowing them to up and out of the water. Three rescuers  tried to get them but their boat capsized and forced them to join Josh, Shanice and his baby in the tree. This necessitated a second, successful rescue of everybody.

On Sept. 21, 2009, Melissa Brooks was alone on I-20 and blindly drove right into the area where Sweetwater Creek had overflowed over the highway. Her car was instantly swept away. Doug Weghorn and Zack Stephney fought the current and save her after her car sank.

On TV

“Storm Stories,” 8:30 p.m. Saturday on the Weather Channel