On the evening of september 7 and the early morning of september 8, heave rains fell that caused widespread damage to many homes and yards in East Cobb and the City of Marietta.  Much of the damage was upstream not in the low lying areas. Most people did not have flood insurance but some did and they found out that flood insurance does not cover the damage. 

Most of the homes were built prior to 1985. The county discarded the as built records prior to 1985. In 1986 the county started the storm water department without as built records. Stormwater infrastructure was constructed to convey stormwater through neighborhoods. Many of these now drain commercial developments or county parks through these neighborhoods. In some cases, new neighborhoods were added up stream.  This stormwater infrastructure running through private lots is a shared community asset and should be supported by only some in the community. But the County is using their lack of records to pretend that the homeowners added these assets latter. This infrastructure is original to the development  and is shared by community and the commercial developments. But the county is pretending that the homeowner not the original development added these assets and is sticking the homeowners with $25,00- $50,000 repairs. Others have had damage to their homes of tens of thousands of dollars.  The only aid offered is loans at 3.125% interest for 7 years. This wont help Cobb Residents. 

This is the third 500 year storm in 20 years yet the county only only designs for 100 year storm. What we learned is that the county is designing for failure and that the stormwater designs of new developments are designed for failure. Even worse, repairing the infrastrue will not mitigate the risk.  

The county attempt to saddle homeowners with responsibility for a shared community aset is leaving people in our community in financial ruin and some may lose their home.  People have tried to appeal individually but the county is running over them. The only way to bring about the change to ensure Cobb's storm infrastructure is managed to mitigate actual risk and to ensure it is maintained is for the community to come together and demand a solution that removes the gap the country now has and demand Cobb Leadership provides arranges the aid needed. If you have been impacted or you want to help those who have been impacted, please join the community fight!