Living in a South Ga. mobile home on the water during Hurricane Irma

ATKINSON — Under the threat of flooding, you probably wouldn't want to live by a river. With officials and forecasters warning of tornadoes spinning off a hurricane, you'd really prefer not to live in a mobile home. If there was a mandatory evacuation in your neighborhood and across the whole county for people in trailers, you'd likely be tempted to leave.

But you are not Frank Melton, 70-year-old semi-retired truck driver.

He lives outside Atkinson, in the Warner’s Landing neighborhood at the edge of the Satilla River. Atkinson is in Brantley County, which is a county from the ocean and where the emergency management director figures about 75 percent of people live in trailers.

At the river’s edge in Melton’s neighborhood, the trailers, custom homes and barns – even the propane tanks and pump houses – are on stilts. Many of the homes appeared empty Saturday afternoon as residents fled for higher ground, but Melton felt ready for whatever Hurricane Irma brings.

“I don’t think there’s gonna be that much water coming in here,” he said. “If the storm were to come around and stay in the gulf a few days, that’s when we get our problems here.”

He pointed to the exposed sandbar, showing the water was low, and he listed a litany of steps he’s taking to be prepared, including tying down the lawn furniture.

Officials don’t recommend this.

Across Southeast Georgia, they are concerned about flooding in low-lying land and tornadoes knocking out power or pummeling homes.

Michelle Lee, the emergency management director in Brantley, said mobile homes likely can’t stand up to the prolonged 40 to 60 miles an hour winds expected to come with Irma.

The board of commissioners ordered an evacuation of everyone to the east of U.S. 301, which bisects the county, even though the governor hasn’t. They also ordered everyone in a trailer in the whole county to leave.

Lee said memories of last year’s Hurricane Matthew are driving some to take the order.

“They realize this is gonna be worse,” she said.

But memories fade.

“We made it through Hurricane Matthew, we’ll make it through this one,” said Kyle Chesser, a 17-year-old who lives near the Satilla River, which dumps into the Atlantic Ocean from neighboring Camden County.

Chesser, wearing a gold chain and rubber hip boots over jeans, was loading a boat Saturday to hunt the banks for palmetto berries, which he sells for use in the medical industry. Like many of his neighbors, he’d been cutting down pine trees around his trailer just in case they wanted to fall.

“It’s just another day,” he said. “It don’t bother me.”

Down the road, Barbara Lee, 50, who was born and raised here, also isn’t planning to leave.

Lee, whose t-shirt proclaimed she was “too blessed to be stressed,” said she hasn’t seen flooding bad enough to get her out in all the years of her life. The roads in the neighborhood, which are all dirt, do wash out in heavy rains, making it complicated — not impossible — to leave, but the river has never crept to her home.

“We’re just putting our trust in God,” she said, adding that they’ve loaded up on supplies in case they get stranded or lose power for days, as they did in Hurricane Matthew.

Of course, many remember that storm differently. Take Clove Cooper Jr., 68-year-old dock builder.

If you were looking for him at his trailer near the Satilla on Saturday, you wouldn’t have found him. He went to Waycross to stay in the shelter in the Ware County High gym after he couldn’t find a hotel.

"Staying there is suicide," Cooper said of his home in Nahunta. "This storm here's devastating. It might change. Only God can say, but why would you chance it?"

Melton has lived in his home, which sits about 10 feet off the ground and has a sign reading “Redneck Riviera” on its side, for 10 years.

In 2009, water climbed the stilts and forced him to wade to his boat if he wanted to leave. He took it down the river to a public landing and walked.

Once, he had to drive a four-wheeler up his back steps to get to the door.

He doesn’t think Irma will be even that bad.

But Melton doesn’t want to be foolish.

He’s stocked up on water, ice and canned goods, and he's loaded the freezer. He has lanterns and a gas stove. He’s watching the weather and water level. He has several trucks.

At the back door, he’s keeping a boat waiting.