The Tennessee Valley Authority is expecting up to 4 inches of rain in parts of Northern Georgia and potentially other parts of the Tennessee Valley as the remnants of Hurricane Irma move north and bring rain throughout the Southeast.
But TVA spokesman Travis Brickey said today that TVA doesn't anticipate any river or mainstream flooding concerns this week.
There may be some localized flooding from heavy rains tonight, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as Hurricane Irma is downgraded to a tropical storm as it moves north through Georgia and Alabama.
But TVA river management crews have been preparing for the storms for most of the past week, Brickey said.
"We started last week even when the hurricane was way out in the Atlantic positioning the mainstream reservoirs to create a little bit more storage capability," Brickey said. "We should be in a good shape."
Brickey said the latest forecasts indicate some places in the Valley could get up to 4 inches of rain, perhaps in the Blue Ridge and Chatuge reservoirs in North Georgia and western North Carolina.
"We've curtailed out releases so we the river downstream can handle more inflows," Brickey said. "A lot of tributaries are down to the flood guides for this time of year already."
TVA was spilling water through its Guntersville and Pickwick reservoirs over the weeekend "just to get ahead of some of the rains we expect, but we think we're in pretty good shape," Brickey said.