Dam Break in Georgia – 1977
Toccoa Falls College is a beautiful place. Located in Stephens County in Northeast Georgia, the picturesque campus is about 100 miles northeast of Atlanta.  The Christian liberal arts college was moved to Toccoa in 1911 because of the railroad. The AMTRAK Crescent still stops there even today.Â
Above the campus and falls, an earthen dam on Toccoa Creek, the Kelly Barnes dam, holds back a fifty five acre lake that contains 176 million gallons of water. The lake is one of the prettiest in Georgia. The creek gurgles down from the lake and rushes over the chasm of the 186 foot Toccoa Falls, thirty feet higher than Niagara Falls. The creek then meanders through the campus in a steep box canyon. The topography would play an important role in the disaster that unfolded on this morning in 1977.Â
 Weather maps on the morning of Saturday, November 5, 1977 showed an upper level low pressure system centered over the Mississippi Coast. A surface low was near Mobile. Moist southeasterly winds were funneling moisture into the mountains of Northeast Georgia. The low would move northeast and weaken. Weather maps from the morning of Sunday, November 6th belied the fact that a disaster had occurred.Â
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Heavy rains fell across the area all day Saturday and through the evening hours. Worried security guards and fire department officials monitored rises on the creek during the evening, and for a time, the water was over a bridge that went to a trailer park for students. But the water receded after midnight. Earlier, the deputies had driven up to the dam to check on its condition. They found that the lake level was several feet below the top of the dam and did not see any cause for alarm.Â
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Around 1:25 a.m., as the campus lay sleeping peacefully, the dam gave way. In seconds, millions of gallons of water were rushing over the falls and thundering into the box canyon, piling up to an unbelievable height. It spewed out with tremendous force, a giant wall of water sweeping everything in its path. Less than two minutes later, the water surged into the western part of the campus. Residents had no warning other than the thunderous roar.Â
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When all was said and done, thirty nine died and another sixty were injured. Much of the student housing was destroyed or damaged. The college gradually recovered and today has an enrollment of about 850 people and thirty six buildings.Â
November 6th, 2006 at 12:11 am
Hi guys,
I like your site. It’s very informative and well thought out. I linked your blog on my site. I want to eventually have more links to weather blogs across the world! Does anyone know of any other neat blogs?
Dave from Alaska (southeast of Fairbanks)
November 6th, 2006 at 11:29 am
My husband and I lived in Clayton, Ga, just north of Toccoa during that time. He was a memeber of the Rabun County Rescue squad that responded to that emergency in the middle of the night.The power and destruction of that water crashing down through that college campus was overwhelming. It certainly made us all aware of how fragile life is and how important it is to live each day to the fullest…Thank you for making note of this event. It affected SO many lives.
November 9th, 2006 at 11:56 am
I have just learned about the Kelly Barnes Dam break of 1977 in Toccoa through your website. I was born and raised in Atlanta, GA and have never heard of this! How awful.
December 1st, 2006 at 1:59 am
I was there. I lived through it. I was three and remember everything today like it was yesterday.
My families trailer home was just above the flood plane in upper-trailerville, you can actually see it on the cover of Dam Break in Georgia. I remember hearing the first roar of the tidal wave as it ripped up the valley below and deposited debris and people, some still living, where the sewage ponds used to be.
I recall running up into the mountains to safety in the dark with only the aweful sounds of the churning chaos to define the night. In the morning my whole family descended from our sanctuary in the Appalachian foothills to bear witness to the utter destruction left behind. I on my mother’s shoulders and my brother on my father’s, we walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and yet we feared No Evil, for the Lord is God and He was good.
I first came to understand the concept of death 3 weeks later when at the refugee center several of my friends and their parents were absent from my 4th Birthday party. That was a significant moment in my life.
Thank you.
April 3rd, 2007 at 3:02 am
I was there as a new student.It was a long time ago and it still feels like yesterday.Memories of that place and that night……what can I say. If ever I have been to a place that I would consider holy…..