While Fayette County escaped the most severe brunt of Tropical Storm Frances
earlier in the week, workers got quite a scare at the Sams Lake Wetlands
Mitigation Project on Old Senoia Road. This earthen dam built to hold back
the waters of Perry Creek broke, sending millions of gallons of water rushing
under the roadbed and into nearby Whitewater Creek, where it flooded some
neighborhoods downstream, said Pete Nelms of the county's Emergency Services.
The mishap has set back work on the Sams Lake project by several months
and will cost the City of Atlanta hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair,
said Nelms. Atlanta is restoring Sams Lake to compensate for wetlands destroyed
in the runway expansion project at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Photo/J. Frank Lynch.
