By Winston Jones

Staff Writer

Damage from September flooding will top $8.3 million for Douglasville-Douglas County Water and Sewer Authority (WSA), Pete Frost, WSA executive director, said Monday.

Frost said while insurance and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) will hopefully pay for most of the damage, customer rates will have to make up the difference.

“We’ll be paying for this for a long time to come,” Frost told a noon meeting of the Rotary Club of Douglas County.

He said the Dog River Reservoir dam suffered about $2 million in damages due to the huge amount of water pouring over the top.

“The dam was designed to handle 30 billion gallons per day,” he said. “During the flooding, it received 44 billion gallons per day. We were very happy it didn’t break.”

Frost said the water caused heavy damage to one of the dam’s gates.

He said WSA maintains several rain gauges around the county and one recorded more than 21 inches in 24 hours, while another showed 15 inches.

“The 100-year rainfall event is 7 inches and the 500-year is 9 inches,” Frost said. “It’s likely we’ll never see another rainfall like this.”

Frost called the restoration process “a real team effort” and said it was a tribute to everybody in the county.

“The police, fire, city, county, WSA staff, everybody pulled together to restore service,” he said.

He called the situation on Sept. 21 “every water manager’s worst nightmare, having no water in the system.” As flood waters ripped out roads, they also tore out water and sewer lines, he said.

In such cases, it sometimes takes weeks to restore water service, he added. Most WSA customers were back online by Thursday and the boil water advisory was lifted on Sunday.

Frost said WSA had priorities for restoring water, with the first priority being the hospital and the jail next. When these sites were restored, it also gave water to most of downtown Douglasville. The Red Cross blood processing plant also needed the water restored to continue blood service.

Frost has been with WSA since it was formed in 1985. He has received the Fuller Award, the highest state award given in the water treatment industry. He received the River Steward Award from the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, the first time the organization has given the award to an individual for his personal efforts.