Flooded Waterways Swamp Dozens of Southern Towns : Weather: Death toll climbs to 23 as other cities prepare for worst. Thousands flee rapidly rising rivers.

The death toll continued to climb Friday as rain-swollen rivers and creeks overran dozens of towns and hamlets throughout Georgia as well as in parts of Alabama and north Florida.

In what is the worst flood to strike this region in 65 years, at least 23 people are dead, 300,000 were without safe drinking water and portions of interstate highways were closed because of high water. Damage estimates have reached $100 million.

In this southwestern Georgia city, a van ran off the road and into the Flint River late Thursday. Five people in the vehicle escaped, but two children, ages 2 and 4, were swept away. As of Friday afternoon, one child’s body had been recovered.

At the town cemetery, 200 air-tight caskets popped out of the sodden ground and were floating, held in only by a fence. Parks Department workers in boats tried to corral some of the coffins, tying them to trees.

“We’re just trying to retrieve what we can until we can get the National Guard in there.”

Southeast of downtown, at the Oakridge Shopping Center, businesses were closed and filled with water. Water also rose halfway to the roof of the Southside Baptist Church. Verna Hall, 70, who lives three houses away, said: “I was supposed to teach Sunday school this week. I guess I won’t have to worry about that now.”

From his back yard, Al Cortez, 45, contemplated casting a fishing line into a river he normally cannot see from his house. “Too muddy,” he concluded. “And the smell!”

After four days of heavy rain generated by a stalled tropical storm system, the worst was still ahead for thousands of people living downstream on waterways swollen way past capacity.

“We’ve got a lot of concerned people here,” said Police Officer Doyle Welch in Bainbridge, Ga., located about 40 miles south of Albany. The Flint River is expected to crest at 45 feet above flood stage next Wednesday at Bainbridge.

Some 2,000 residents of low-lying areas west of town have been evacuated. “But everyone is working together, and we’re doing the best we can,” Welch said.

In Albany, which has been virtually isolated by rising water, the muddy Flint was expected to crest early today.

Rescuers here used boats to pluck stranded residents from the roofs of their homes.

“We’ve been pulling them from trees, power poles and all kinds of things,” said Assistant Fire Chief J.W. Arrowwood.

Despite days of warning, some waited until it was almost too late. “We were fools, just crazy,” said Johnny Oliver, who was picked up by a boat as he waded through shoulder-high water.

Some 15,000 residents--nearly a quarter of the city’s population--have been forced out of their homes. A hospital was sandbagged and partially evacuated. All four bridges into town were closed.

In Macon, Ga., where floodwaters closed down sections of Interstate 75 and Interstate 16 this week, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros toured the stricken area Friday afternoon and said: “This is a city of 106,000 that has no drinking or running water, and it’s likely to be eight days until they get it back. It’s going to be very difficult and frustrating.”

Cisneros said thousands of people had been forced from their homes in a swath of Georgia that includes Macon, Americus and Albany. “After the Midwest floods of last year, nothing surprises me,” he said. “But this is a body blow. And when a person is pushed out of their home, it doesn’t matter how vast the area of destruction is.”

While the sun was seen in Albany and Atlanta on Friday, anxiety rose downstream with the floodwaters.

“We just closed all our bridges,” Police Chief Sam Tripp of Hawkinsville, Ga., said Friday afternoon as the Ocmulgee River hit 38 feet on its rise to an expected crest of 42 feet on Monday. Already, Tripp said, the river has claimed 20 to 25 homes in low-lying areas of this town of 5,000 residents, and more were expected to be lost.

“We’ve only had four or five inches of rain here; this is all from upstream,” Tripp said. “In 1990, the river got to 31 feet, but that was nothing like this.”

The Choctawatchee River is expected to crest at a record 26 feet today in Caryville, Fla., a town of 600 people located west of Tallahassee.

“The water’s been rising for three days, and we’ve got Marine Patrol, Florida Highway Patrol and the fire marshal, even National Guard troops, moving people,” said Holmes County Sheriff’s Deputy Ronnie Grant. “They say this is going to be the worst flood since 1929.”

In Macon, the Ocmulgee, fed by rainfall totals as high as 20 inches, had already done its damage. The water treatment plant was swamped Tuesday, and since then residents have lined up at area shopping centers for free drinking water.

On Thursday, the Ocmulgee crested at what officials guessed was about 35 feet; they could not be certain because the depth gauge was swept away. Flood stage is 18 feet.

Left behind was a mess: piles of debris, brown mud, and a pungent stench.

In Americus, where at least 10 people died, divers continued to search creeks and rivers for bodies Friday while some residents began to shovel mud from their homes. Rainfall in Americus this week has totaled more than 24 inches.

Along the Towaliga River, 150 miles north of Albany, police found the body of William Miller, who with his wife, Willa, had been missing since Tuesday. Willa Miller, who clung to a tree for nine hours before being rescued, told police their car was swept into the raging floodwaters.

Near Elbert, about 100 miles northeast of Albany, another man’s body was found in a swollen creek.

Authorities feared that more bodies would be found.

The rains that have pounded the region for days began late Sunday, hours after Tropical Storm Alberto blew across the Florida Panhandle from the Gulf of Mexico and then stalled over Georgia and Alabama.

Fed by moisture from both the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean, the low-pressure system was transformed into a round-the-clock rain machine, dumping record amounts of precipitation on central and southern Georgia and parts of Alabama.

Georgia Gov. Zell Miller has declared 43 counties disaster areas, and President Clinton authorized federal aid--including emergency housing grants and low-cost loans--for the hardest-hit areas. Some 400,000 acres of cropland has been flooded, and 31 earthen dams have given way.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the people back home who are battling fires and floods, and especially with the families of those who have lost their lives in the disasters,” Clinton said in a statement from Naples, Italy, where he is attending an economic summit.

Stanley reported from Albany, Ga., and Clary from Miami.

Flooding Still Fierce

Huge sections of central and southern Georgia remained submerged Friday in a sea of muddy flood waters.

Dougherty Co.: People warned to evacuate

Macon: 12.82 inches

Americus: 24.5 inches

Albany: 6.65 inches

Rainfall totals listed are from the begining of the storm Sunday through 2 p.m. Thursday

Sources: AP, The Atlanta Constitution, Times Atlanta Bureau