Tropical Storm in Georgia, July 6 to 7, 2005

Tropical storm Cindy moved onshore near New Orleans, Louisiana around 6 am EDT July 6th. The remains of Cindy then moved northeast across southern Mississippi and central Alabama between Birmingham and Montgomery by 8 pm EDT on the 6th, then moved into north Georgia near Cedartown shortly after midnight then across north Georgia during the morning hours on July 7th. Areas north of Cedartown, to Atlanta, to Gainesville experienced many hours of light to moderate rain with average rainfall amounts from 3 pm EDT on the 6th to 7 am EDT on the 7th of one to two inches. However, the main problem with tropical storm Cindy was associated with spiral feeder bands that moved into west central Georgia shortly after 3 pm EDT July 6th and then tracked across west central, north central, and northeast Georgia during the evening hours. The timing of the arrival of the spiral bands into the area combined with peak heating to produce several bands of strong thunderstorms with tornadoes, damaging winds, flash flooding, and even some hail. The strongest thunderstorms, producing flash flooding and tornadoes, were confined to an area approximately 50 miles wide that extended from Franklin, to Peachtree City, to McDonough, to Monroe, to Danielsville. Six tornadoes were confirmed during the evening hours including an F2 and two F1s in Henry county, and an F0 each in Meriwether, Coweta, and Fayette. The F2 tornado in Henry county caused extensive damage to the Atlanta Motor Speedway and adjacent Tara Field Airport and then traveled into southeast Clayton county causing damage to 70 homes. Numerous trees and power lines were down throughout many of the west central and Atlanta metropolitan counties, even where tornadoes did not occur. Power outages were widespread and many residents of these areas were without power throughout the night.Flash flooding was also a problem. The thunderstorms associated with the spiral bands of Cindy dumped torrential rainfall across Heard, Carroll, Fayette, Clayton, Fulton, De Kalb, Spalding, Henry, Rockdale, Gwinnett, Newton, Walton, Morgan, Clarke, Barrow, and Madison counties. Rainfall averaged three inches across most of these counties, with a band of rainfall in excess of five inches affecting northeast Coweta, northern Fayette, northern Clayton, southern Fulton, southern DeKalb, and much of Rockdale counties. Rainfall at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport was 5.14 inches, which set a daily record for the calendar day and also was the 6th largest one-day rainfall total ever recorded at that location. Flash flooding was particularly severe in Peachtree City, where an 18-year old boy was swept to his death in a rain-swollen drainage ditch. Flash flooding was also reported in Meriwether, Upson, Coweta, Fulton, De Kalb, and Morgan counties were several creeks and streams exceeded their banks and several roads were washed out. A resident of Upson county was injured when he drove his truck into a rain-swollen stream that had washed out a road.Estimated damages to North and Central Georgia in association with Tropical Storm Cindy were approximately $76,000,000. The majority of this was the result of tornado damage, but over $500,000 was flash flood or flood related. As noted above, there was also one flash flood-related death and one flash flood-related injury as a result of Tropical Storm Cindy.