Flood leaves hard feelings, disrepair in Austell

Jerkins says Mother Nature is the culprit, but some people still blame the city government – and him personally -- for not warning them to get flood insurance, or for allowing houses to be built in low-lying areas. Now they blame him for not cleaning up the city faster.

“I can understand that because they’re hurt,” Jerkins said of the townspeople. “They want to blame somebody."

But Jerkins said feeling are hurt, too.

"I feel good about what we did," he said, "but I don't feel good about how the homeowners have reacted to us."

Jerkins still has plenty of supporters, mainly longtime residents who remember how he improved the city’s finances, didn’t take a salary for more than a decade, cut taxes, lowered fire insurance rates, built parks and fought to kept the city post office from being closed.

But the flood has been a public relations problem that won’t go away. A few weeks ago The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the city missed an early deadline in applying for federal money to buy out 23 badly damaged houses.

Jerkins said the money will come through anyway, but the news didn’t do much to improve city hall’s standing with flood victims – especially people hoping their homes will be bought out later.

“Now they know there’s no hope,” said Deborah Cassidy, who moved back into her flood damaged house after repairs. She predicted more people will walk away from their homes.

Even Jerkins predicts the owners of about 200 homes on the Tier 2 list – badly damaged but not bought out by the government yet -- will be stuck with their houses.

Example of flood damage abound. On streets like Pontiac Circle, eight of nine small, one-story houses on one side of the street are clearly abandoned, marked by broken doors, shattered windows and overgrown lawns. The force of the water shoved some houses off their foundations. On one house, somebody posted a hand-written "For Sail" sign.

“You feel unsafe a little bit because you never know what you’re walking past,” said Lottie Taylor, who moved from Philadelphia about four months ago to live with her daughter on Pontiac Circle. “And some houses look like they should be taken away.”

Jerkins said the city would like to force the owners of the abandoned houses to do something about cleaning up the properties. Many of the banks haven’t foreclosed on some of the houses yet, he said, and the city doesn’t want to risk liability by cutting grass cut grass or making repairs on private property. He said the city doesn’t know exactly how many abandoned houses are left.

“We’re letting FEMA do what they need to do before we press the issue,” he said.

That attitude angers Mike Otten, who attended some city council meetings to complain about what the city has done about flood cleanup.

“It’s symptomatic of how the city performs,” he said. “The city only acts when they’re forced to.”

Otten said that even in a new subdivision like Cureton Woods, where he lives, seven of 43 homes in the first phase of the subdivision are vacant or in foreclosure.

Otten, 61, said he and his partner paid about $290,000 for their two-story house a few years ago, hoping to live there about 10 years before retiring. They  spent about $105,000 on flood repairs, including $30,000 in FEMA money. He said the house’s assessed value is about $213,000 now.

“The future changed permanently,” Otten said. “I don’t think we’ll be retiring any time soon.”

The floods killed 10 people in Georgia but nobody in Austell – a fact Jerkins is very proud of. The mayor estimates residents walked away from about half of the 700 damaged homes and left town. That meant the city lost about 750 residents from a population estimated at 8,000 by Jerkins and 7,000 by the census bureau.

For those who remained, small reminders of the flood are constant.

For instance, the city cancelled the Halloween Festival for the second year in a row because Legion Park hasn’t been fully repaired. Police still have a problem with thieves breaking into abandoned houses to steal copper and wiring. Some streets like Locust Lane remain barricaded.

Jerkins, 68 and a lifelong resident of the area, said the city is moving ahead the best it can. He said he can handle the flak.

The mayor said it wasn’t the city’s responsibility to advise residents to get flood insurance and that the city required houses to be built above the flood plain. He says people don’t realize Austell was struck by a 500-year flood that nobody in town – or Georgia -- was prepared for. He thinks the city will prevail in the inevitable lawsuits.

“They might as well sue God,” he has said.

Jerkins likes to get personally involved in running the city. When the flood hit he helped rescue people from houses and directed traffic away from impassable streets. Before the floods, he helped with the manual labor on city construction projects.

Some people might call that being a hands-on mayor and city manager, but Cassidy doesn’t.

“It’s all about him,” she said. “He’s very self-centered.”

She said Jerkins could showed insensitivity by allowing a life-sized statue of himself to be erected a few months after the flood. The park and statue cost about $225,000 combined, with the money coming from interest earned by a $5 million community improvement fund.

Jerkins didn’t vote to erect the statue -- which was ordered long before the flood -- but Cassidy said he should have stopped or delayed it.

“It was very bad timing and a lot of homeowners were upset," she said. "They should have waited a year.”

Jerkins has said his friends in city government wanted to do something nice for him and he felt honored.

Even Cassidy said some good came out of the flood, because people came from other states, even other countries, to help flood victims rebuild. Darlene Duke, executive director of a local helping agency, Christian Aid Mission Partnership, said she thinks the city has turned a corner.

“Everyone seems to be hopeful, believe it or not,” she said. “Not overly optimistic, but thinking the worst is over. The rebuilding has started.”

Meanwhile, Jerkins cheerfully handles all the media as journalists cover the flood anniversary. He said he has a long-term fix for the flood problem

He advocates construction of a five-mile tunnel to divert overflow from Sweetwater Creek. The project would cost about $100 million, which he thinks could be financed with a bond paid off by Austell, Powder Springs, Cobb County and Douglas County. To make it happen, Jerkins will run again in November 2011, if his wife, Sandra, gives him the green light.

Would he win? Despite the deluge of complaints, Jerkins says yes.