More than a dozen businesses in downtown Summerville, Georgia, were seriously damaged Saturday as a thunderstorm came through quickly and somewhat unexpectedly and dumped up to nine inches of rain.
The rain started late Saturday night after initial reports predicted about three inches were expected, and a flash flood warning was issued around 10 p.m. Streets began to quickly flood soon after at Commerce Street and Highway 48 in Summerville.
Pam Vaughn, the director of the Chattooga County Emergency Management Agency, said Monday the storm once looked like it would miss Summerville completely but unfortunately that wasn't the case.
Although the flooding Saturday wasn't the worst Vaughn has seen in the area - compared to recent tornadoes and other storms - she said this one affected the city in a unique way.
"This impacted a small area but it was filled with businesses that of course is going to impact the whole county that way, too," she said. "We do have some houses and apartment buildings that flooded out, too, but a lot of people won't call it in, they'll just try to clean it up themselves. We'll be going out and doing some damage assessment throughout the next few days and hopefully have a better idea of what we're looking at."
Vaughn said no injuries were reported during the storm.
Several roads and bridges were closed during the storm and directly after but Vaughn said only one road was still closed Monday afternoon and that it was expected to be open by the end of the day.
Georgia Power reported about 200 outages in the area Saturday night.
Dane Maddux is the owner of the Great Awakening Coffee Company in downtown Summerville. Having had his shop flooded once before, he went to check on it Saturday when the rain started. When he got there, he was stunned to find that his parking lot already had knee-deep water.
"I went inside to check in on everything and in a matter of 30, 35 minutes it was already waist deep outside," Maddux said. "Inside it was over our ankles, so we went in and tried to get as much as possible off the floor."
It didn't take long for community members to pitch in and help their neighbors. Summerville First Baptist Church organized a cleanup Sunday morning, and a handful of area churches either skipped or postponed their Sunday services to help.
Maddux said that when the cleanup effort was done, a few church leaders held a service downtown to cap off a pretty special Sunday.
"That was pretty incredible to see in the midst of all the messiness and craziness and disaster that churches can come together," he said. "That was really cool. There was a lot of good [that came out of this]."
Those affected by the flooding or with other property damage can call Vaughn's office at 706-857-3400, ext. 2. Bags of sand are available for anyone in need while supplies last, and pickups can be arranged by calling 706-859-0907.
Contact Patrick Filbin at pfilbin@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476. Follow him on Twitter @PatrickFilbin.