Photo above: Graham Jagger and Rebecca Sullivan at 15-foot dropoff (by Rebecca Gaunt)
by Rebecca Gaunt
When Rebecca Sullivan purchased a house in Smyrna nine years ago, her two sons could jump over the creek that runs through the back yard. Now she watches the weather forecast with dread, wondering how long she has before she loses her home to what she described as a 30-foot wide raging river, after the storms caused by Hurricane Idalia blew through last August.
Sullivan’s home, built in 1994, is inside the city of Smyrna. The land on the other side of the creek is unincorporated Cobb County. Sullivan is caught between two municipalities, neither of which is offering solutions.
“A while ago, Cobb was looking to introduce a stormwater fee, and when you look at the report on that and the comments that were made when they had the debate on that, the money was going toward projects like this. So Cobb has identified that there is a significant problem like this,” Sullivan’s father, Graham Jagger, told the Courier.
As the creek has grown wider, deeper, and faster, it is no longer possible to jump across, even though her sons are now in high school. When it rains, especially as it did at the end of August, it becomes a brown, rushing river, depositing trash and tree debris everywhere.
“It used to be so pretty,” she said, standing on the deck she no longer enjoys using.
Her yard has eroded by several feet to the water that only comes harder and faster the more the land breaks off into the flow. To the left side of the backyard is a steep dropoff of about 15 feet. To the right, there are stumps where there used to be trees before storms and the subsequent flooding destroyed them. One of the tiny stumps right on the edge of the bank sits cockeyed over the creek. Sullivan planted that tree several years ago. Back then there was enough land that…
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