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Hurricane Helene rocked the Southeast in late September, bringing devastation to parts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and more. The storm, a Category 4 at its peak, arrived in Georgia on Friday night and affected almost every part of the state. Gov. Brian Kemp has called the damage left by the storm “unprecedented.”
Georgia cities like Savannah, Augusta, and their surrounding areas were especially left vulnerable, with some residents not having power restored for days afterwards and others still waiting for power to be restored. As of Oct. 3, 260,000 Georgia Power customers were still reportedly without power. 
Parts of Atlanta, like Buckhead, saw massive flooding across neighborhoods. Yet amidst all the despair, careful planning from the City years before potentially saved even more people from worse outcomes and demonstrated the importance of learning from the past. 
Though Atlanta isn’t always known for its reliable infrastructure, one silver lining in the wake of the storm is seeing green infrastructure work as designed — specifically stormwater retention ponds — and serve as that reminder that green infrastructure is a worthwhile investment.
Two of these ponds in particular, located at the Old Fourth Ward Park and Cook Park, double as parks at the center of neighborhoods and were created as a response to severe weather and flood waters regularly flooding homes in the neighborhoods.
These stormwater retention points allow excessive water, like that which was seen in the Hurricane, to be stored through the retention pond system and spare the homes surrounding the park.
Rodney Cook Sr. Park in Vine City  — or Cook Park for short — opened in 2021 just a few blocks away from Mercedes Benz Stadium. Like Old Fourth Ward Park in the Old Fourth Ward across from Ponce City Market, it’s a stormwater retention pond in the middle of a neighborhood built in part for the purpose of mitigating flooding issues that plagued the neighborhood. According to the Trust for Public Land, it serves approximately 3600 residents within a 10-minute walk and doubles as a 10-million-gallon stormwater catchment.
Jay Wozniak, Georgia urban parks program director for the Trust of Public Land which oversaw land acquisition for Cook Park along with fundraising, community engagement, design and construction, said the parks seemed to function as well as anyone could have hoped.
“I had a chance to visit the park the Friday morning after Atlanta had received all the rain that it did, and what I observed was that it did function the way that it was supposed to function,” Wozniak said, adding that he couldn’t speak to specific technical aspects and how they fared.
Cook Park was, in many, ways the response to prior flooding the area had gotten. In 2002, Tropical Storm Hanna ripped through parts of Georgia and, combined with sewer failures from the city, left the Vine City neighborhood overwhelmed. Hundreds of homes were left beyond repair, and officials assumed that as things stood there was a likelihood of flooding in the future.
“Folks were rescued from their front doors in jon boats as stormwater and sewage poured into their homes,” Wozniak said. “So from 2002 until 2015 there had been quite a bit of discussion about the use of that land — what it could be and what it should be — and many arrived at the conclusion that it should become a park focused on managing stormwater.”
The Trust for Public Land along with the City of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed worked alongside to bring that vision to reality. 
Nearly 20 years later, Cook Park was built to mitigate flooding issues in this exact scenario, and in the wake of one of the worst storms the state has ever seen, the park seemed to have functioned as designed, with minimal flooding in the immediate vicinity to the park.
Similarly, the two-acre retention pond in the Old Fourth Ward seemed to be able to handle the rain seamlessly. One X user wrote: “Quite full in O4W but working as designed. Level appears to be dropping, but my eyes could be playing tricks on me.”
Quite full in O4W but working as designed. Level appears to be dropping but my eyes could be playing tricks on me. pic.twitter.com/0ctBoyIxvB
Another X user tweeted “Pretty Dang full!” in response to a question one user asked about flooding.
Pretty dang full! pic.twitter.com/EmEGyr09UP
The exact amount of water either of the two parks received is unknown, but Saporta Report has reached out to the Department of Watershed and will update with more information if it becomes available. 
“I would say that these two projects are the most impactful for the localized areas that they are collecting and managing stormwater,” Wozniak said. “I would say that there’s a case that could be made for larger, less formalized park systems in Atlanta that also alleviate stormwater but, from a formalized urban park perspective and the amount of stormwater that they are truly collecting and managing, I think it’s safe to say that those two parks are the most important in the City of Atlanta.”
It is important to note the storm didn’t cover every part of Georgia equally, and it could be a case that these two parks were fortunate enough to not see the worst of the rain. It can also be noted, however, that the storm broke a nearly 140-year rainfall record across two days, with 11 inches of rain detected in the 48-hour span. 
In other words, this was as heavy a rain as the city has seen in quite some time across a two-day span.
Working with vs against the neighborhood
The process isn’t always easy and straightforward, though. After a flood in Peoplestown in 2012, residents battled for nearly a decade across three mayoral administrations to stop the city from taking their homes through eminent domain so that the city could allegedly build a stormwater retention pond similar to those aforementioned. 
Residents, however, alleged the flood was so bad because of lack of sewer maintenance from the city. Moreover, they found through a series of court documents and former city engineer-turned-whistleblower that the city was allegedly overextending their needed geographic reach for such a pond and planning to level more homes than was truly needed for the project. The fight became a contention point, opening a conversation of “green gentrification,” or building public amenities in a historically underinvested area to attract wealthier residents while simultaneously pushing out legacy residents.
The issue rose to the campaign level in 2020, when both candidates, Andre Dickens and Felicia Moore, visited the site. Dickens promised that residents would stay in their homes; eventually, the remaining residents whose homes would be demolished for the park settled with the city.
Today, that stormwater park is still being discussed and planned with the name Custer Avenue Capacity Relief Multi-Benefit Project. The third public meeting about the project was held last month on Sept. 12. Construction is set to begin in the first half of 2025, according to the project website.
Stormwater retention ponds aren’t exactly a new invention — but they may be just what these neighborhoods needed. Moreover, they were a response that not only built resilience in a neighborhood, but added an amenity via their accompanying parks.
“We’re not only building parks for people that need a playground; oftentimes we’re building parks to solve bigger environmental issues, and the fact that [Cook Park] did what it was supposed to do is meaningful — especially in a neighborhood like Historic Vine City,” Wozniak said. “Historic Vine City is unlike anywhere else in the world, in terms of the Civil Rights Movement Leaders who lived there and walked those sidewalks, so it’s truly incredible that this part of the city of Atlanta is getting the necessary attention it should, from a historical perspective.”
It remains to be seen what the final result will look like, and if the story is a reminder, it is that building is not always straightforward — nor should it be. Understanding the complexities of a neighborhood, the history of its environmental problems, changing dynamics nearby and more are critical to ensuring the introduction of new amenities into a neighborhood doesn’t aid in the pricing out of legacy residents and only benefits those with money.
But it can also be said that, at least in this instance, green resilient infrastructure worked — and it should be embraced where feasible. When done right, it can turn tragedy into amenity, and beyond this, we can plan for disasters before they ever occur as our climate continues towards an uncertain future with unknown implications across the Southeast.
3 Comments
Such an important story kudos to all the leaders involved in executing these long term plans
These are two incredible projects that have been successful. However, when the city first discussed solutions several decades ago, green infrastructure was suggested but not considered. It is a shame they took so long to implement these solutions, especially in Vine City.
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