The sound of rushing water blended with the sound of Interstate 75 traffic as John Dalton walked carefully through a shallow section of water along the bank of South Chickamauga Creek in Ringgold, Georgia.
At the far corner of the asphalt parking lot of a Hixson distribution facility, a faint path had been worn through a section of woods tangled with brush and trees.
Local residents still tell stories about the week in 1973 when the rain kept falling and the waters kept rising. Photographs prove those stories were not exaggerations but a "high water" mark in Chattanooga history.