More than two weeks after heavy rain that flooded several local homes and businesses, city of Cartersville officials say they have been "in overdrive" checking drainage systems and cleaning ditches and grates, jobs that will likely continue for a month or more.

Public Works Director Bobby Elliott said he received reports of 4.75 to 5 inches of rain falling in areas of Cartersville in a short period of time the evening of Sunday, July 18. It was also responsible for the collapse of a commercial roof.

"[It's] an unnatural event and very seldom that you get that much rain dumped in that short of a time," Elliott said. "The stormwater drainage system in that area was absolutely inundated and it just couldn't carry it all and we had some businesses take water. We had some homes take water, which hasn't happened in my almost seven years here."

Last week, City Manager Sam Grove said a recent phone survey was initiated to help officials assess the level of damage and determine if the area qualifies for state and federal emergency management assistance. Elliott said information gathering and compilation to determine that and how many people were affected could take another two to three weeks.

"We strive to keep our system clean all the time," Elliott said. "A flash flood like this picks up debris from everywhere and what it does is wherever that debris can't get into the system, it clogs it. A normal 1-inch rain, nice little thunderstorm, is not going to pick that debris up and carry it. The rain's going to fall and it's going to sink in. But when you get 5 inches of rain in an hour, it's going to look like white water. It's going to pick up all kinds of leaves and trash and cuts of firewood, believe it or not. It carries it to the system and if it gets crossways anywhere, then it really becomes a problem. We'll be in clean-up mode from this for next month, month and a half probably."

Meanwhile work crews are focusing on several problem areas identified. They include two ditches along the railroad -- the one running past Spring City toward Pettit Creek and the channel on the north side of The Daily Tribune News' offices at 251 S. Tennessee St. -- and a ditch at the bottom of Granger Hill that runs out Mission Road toward Pettit Creek, Grove said.

"It's primarily responsible for the flooding we saw on Herring Street and Moore's Market getting water in it. Obviously, it couldn't hold the amount of water coming toward it, but those are three primary culprits that we're looking at first," Grove said. "It may be impossible to do, to build the system to hold that quantity of water, but we do have some funding within the stormwater fund that we can use, for example, to fund these ditches. Now of course, we can't do everything with it so we're going to try to get the biggest bang for our buck.

"Relative to are we working overtime and incurring a lot of costs, I don't see that. That is something you might see in a major disaster where water stayed in buildings and the area for a really long time and where we really incurred a lot of damage. That doesn't mean there wasn't significant damage in intense areas but it wasn't widespread enough to really require us to put in a lot of overtime expense or spend significant money on it. We're going to spend money on it, but it's not as much as if it were a larger incident. There are funds within the stormwater fund that are there for cleaning ditches and things and that's what we'll access," Grove added. "I guess the good thing is -- and of course there are people who are critical of that whole effort -- we do have funding set aside and we are prepared for it and can address these situations without worrying about taking from other parts of our budget."

Whether there will be major changes to Cartersville's stormwater system as a result of what National Weather Service meteorologist called street flooding has yet to be determined.

"The area that was hardest hit -- it was just one window as the storm moved through an area stretching just north of Old Mill Road to just south of Porter Street -- that strip took the heavy rain. We are still trying to assess the system. We don't think we have blockages, but we've been walking the system checking and looking almost every day. We've already started doing some maintenance," Elliott said. "Businesses need to access their situation but I would not recommend businesses just run out and start buying flood insurance. Flood waters like that, when they come fast they scare you to death. You've got your livelihood in a business or a home and you don't want to see it ruined. We're going to do everything we can to make sure that our system is cleaned and can take the maximum amount it can carry."

Elliott added that current standard drainage designs are based on a 24-hour rainfall event with a probable recurrence interval of one in 25 years.

"The one we got the other night was larger than that. If our system was installed after 1996, it would be to the 25-year storm. Most of this area we're talking about has been here for a very long time and drainage systems that have lots of age on them -- years ago they did not calculate what size pipes needed to be based on the runoff that's going to go on them," Elliott said. "They just sized the pipe based on what a good judgment would be based on people that have been here a long time that have seen a lot of rainfall. What happens is that system is usually undersized. When you get a larger event like this that hits the older system, it just won't take it.

"Parts of our system in town are undersized and it takes an enormous amount of money to resize everything and we do that project by project."