ATLANTA, Ga. - Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. Just as their names now run together, so do the assessments of the destruction wrought by these storms in Georgia.
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Former crematory operator Ray Brent Marsh prepares to read a statement during a hearing in Lafayette, Ga., Friday, Nov. 19, 2004. Marsh plead guilty to dumping 334 bodies and giving the families of the deceased cement dust instead of ashes. Marsh entered the pleas to 787 counts against him, including theft, abuse of a corpse, burial service fraud and making false statements.
AP / File
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Police carry off one of the activists arrested June 10, 2004, after a march from Brunswick, Ga., ended at the Sea Island security gate on St. Simons Island, Ga.
Associated Press
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Thirteen people killed.
Half the state's pecan crop wiped out.
A third of the state's cotton crop destroyed.
At least 1,750 homes damaged by floods, winds or falling trees.
Nearly 3,100 individuals and businesses seeking federal assistance.
More than $114 million in private property damage; nearly $15 million in public property damage.
It all added up to be one of the most damaging hurricane seasons in Georgia history.
The state's daily newspapers and radio and television stations selected the fierce hurricane season as the top news story of 2004.
Thirty Georgia members of The Associated Press - 19 newspapers and 11 television and radio stations - participated in the news cooperative's survey. Twenty-two of the news outlets had the hurricanes at or near the top of their lists of the year's biggest stories.
For six weeks in August and September, Georgia was under the gun along with most of the Southeast as the series of storms hammered the region. As one would dissipate, another would be brewing off in the Atlantic Ocean, starting its approach and prompting people from Brunswick to Dalton to continue closely monitoring hurricane forecasts.
"What made this season so bad was that we normally don't have this many storms to keep track of here in Georgia," said John Oxendine, the state's insurance commissioner. "At the most, we usually get one."
Hurricane evacuees from Florida repeatedly fled to Georgia, filling hotel rooms, overwhelming gas stations, jamming up highways and crowding emergency shelters. Interstates 75 and 95 at times resembled parking lots for miles north of the Florida state line.
Tropical Storm Charley, the first of the storms to reach Georgia, merely brought drizzle and light rain after leaving a deadly and destructive path in Florida.
Hurricane Frances was much different. Among the storms, it was the most deadly - killing eight - and most disruptive - knocking out power to a half million electrical customers, including 270,000 in metro Atlanta. Frances dumped as much as 13 inches of rain on parts of the state, mostly in southern Georgia.
Nine days later, Hurricane Ivan dumped up to 9 inches, flooding many low-lying areas, including the valleys in the Blue Ridge Mountains of north Georgia and some neighborhoods in metro Atlanta. The storm killed five people, including 6-year-old Cheyene Terrill of Cleveland, who was swept away from her yard by floodwaters as she danced in the rain. Hundreds of people were left homeless by the floods, which the National Weather Service described as some of the worst in Atlanta in the last 100 years.
Then came Tropical Storm Jeanne, which delivered the final blow to many cotton and peanut plants and pecan trees damaged by the earlier storms. Hitting nine days after Ivan's visit, Jeanne's winds of up to 50 mph and pounding rains ruined crops, especially in south Georgia.
The year's elections was a close second in the media poll. The Republicans' big wins swept a battered Democratic Party out of power in the statehouse as the GOP won control of both legislative chambers for the first time since Reconstruction.
The state's Republicans also celebrated giving the state to President Bush and taking a U.S. Senate seat from the Democrats, with Rep. Johnny Isakson beating Democratic Rep. Denise Majette to replace retiring maverick Democrat Zell Miller.
The war in Iraq and its impact on Georgia was the No. 3 story. As the violence escalated, more people with ties to the state were killed, including Jack Hensley, a civil engineer from Marietta who was taken hostage and beheaded by his captors.
Hundreds more troops from the state were deployed and thousands more were ordered to prepare to go to Iraq, including the state's largest Army National Guard unit, the 4,000-troop 48th Brigade. The Army's Fort Stewart-based 3rd Infantry Division also is making last-minute preparations to return to the country where 16,500 of its soldiers led the assault on Baghdad and saw 21 days of continuous combat.
Resistance to the war also made headlines in Georgia. A soldier who deserted his unit in Iraq in protest of the war was court-martialed at Fort Stewart and sentenced to a year in prison.
The national debate over same-sex marriage reached Georgia in 2004, the state's No. 4 story. Months after prompting the most heated debate of the state's legislative session, a constitutional ban on gay marriages was overwhelmingly approved by voters. Opponents are challenging the measure in court, and its future is uncertain.
No. 5 on the list was the biggest business story of the year: Delta's financial turbulence. The Atlanta-based airline - the nation's third largest - managed to avoid bankruptcy, at least for now, after winning $1 billion in wage concessions from its pilots, cutting more jobs, reducing the salaries and benefits of its non-pilot employees, and landing other financing help.
Financial woes in state government was the No. 6 story. Sluggish tax collections prompted 5 percent budget cuts for most state agencies, leading to some layoffs and the loss of Medicaid benefits for hundreds of nursing home residents. Bickering over the budget even led Gov. Sonny Perdue to call a special session of the Legislature.
The state's No. 7 story was the feared shortage of flu shots that had many doctors and clinics turning away people wanting to be vaccinated. At the center of the national response was the Atlanta-based Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
The state ended up with thousands fewer doses of the flu vaccine than previously planned, yet demand was not as overwhelming as expected and some clinics in the state still have extra shots.
The resolution of the criminal and civil lawsuits against former crematory operator Ray Brent Marsh was No. 8 story. Marsh pleaded guilty to dumping more than 330 corpses and giving relatives cement dust instead of the ashes of their loved ones. Under a plea agreement, he is expected to get no more than 12 years in prison and lifelong probation.
The relatives also reached settlements of $80 million with Marsh and $36 million with their funeral homes.
For three days in June, Georgia made headlines around the world as the leaders of the top industrialized nations met at Sea Island for the Group of Eight summit, the No. 9 story. With up to 20,000 officers and troops on guard, few security problems are reported - and only 350 protesters show up.
No. 10 was the vote to determine the state flag. With the divisive rebel "X" out of the picture, voters overwhelmingly endorsed the state's current flag in a referendum that drew little of the emotion that dominated the flag debate in recent years.
A story that just missed making the Top 10 included the year's evolution debate, which included state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox's attempt to take the word "evolution" out of the state's science curriculum, and the federal trial over Cobb County schools' textbook disclaimer stickers that call evolution "a theory, not a fact."
Other stories close to making the list included the Supreme Court tossing out the conviction and 10-year prison sentence of Marcus Dixon, a high school football star in Rome who was accused of raping a 15-year-old classmate at school in 2003; and the brutal killings of Carl and Sarah Collier, who were stabbed allegedly by their granddaughter and her friend during an argument at the victims' home in Fayette County.
Thirty Georgia newspaper and broadcast members of The Associated Press helped determined the top 10 stories of 2004.
The ballots were tallied with 10 points given to each No. 1 vote, 9 points for each No. 2 vote, 8 points for each No. 3 vote, and so on. Number of first-place votes are in parentheses.
1. Hurricanes: 229 (10)
2. Republican Revolution: 223 (9)
3. Iraq Hits Home: 199 (4)
4. Gay Marriage: 128
5. Delta's Turbulence: 110 (1)
6. State Budget Woes: 98 (1)
7. Flu Shot Shortage: 92 (3)
8. Crematory Case: 90
9. G-8 Summit: 74 (1)
10. Georgia Flag: 59
One first-place vote also was cast for the child-molestation conviction of Nuwaubian leader Malachi York, but that story did not get enough overall votes to make the Top 10 list.
Georgia AP's top news stories of recent years:
2003 - ON THE HOMEFRONT: The 3rd Infantry based at Fort Stewart deploys 16,500 soldiers to the war in Iraq and leads the assault on Baghdad, seeing 21 days of continuous combat. The unit also suffers the most casualties of any U.S. military division, with 42 soldiers killed.
2002 - REPUBLICAN COUP: For the first time since Reconstruction, a Republican (Sonny Perdue) is elected governor and the GOP takes control of the state Senate - that's after convincing four Democratic senators to switch parties. Republican Saxby Chambliss also defeats Democratic Sen. Max Cleland.
2001 - IMPACT OF SEPT. 11: While only a handful of Georgians were killed in the attacks, tourists canceled travel plans to the state, military personnel went overseas and government employees - from local police working long hours to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists investigating anthrax - fought terrorism at home.
2000 - WILD WEATHER: Two ice storms coated the northern half of the state in January, tearing down century-old trees and trapping thousands without power and heat. A month later, a tornado ripped through southwest Georgia, killing 19 people and destroying hundreds of homes.
1999 - HURRICANE FLOYD: The huge storm hovered threateningly off the coast for a few days, causing the biggest evacuation in Georgia history with more than 350,000 people displaced from their homes for a day or two. The evacuation created massive traffic jams, prompting scrutiny of the state's disaster plans.
