Torrential rain began late Wednesday night, Nov. 4, and by just before midnight water was reaching homes in Blue Ridge and Cherry Log, Georgia.

The hardest hit areas were McCaysville, Georgia, and Copperhill, Tennessee, twin towns straddling the state line. A flood wave from the Toccoa River arrived in McCaysville just after 2 a.m., with photos showing ankle- to waist-deep water downtown and some buildings submerged to their rooflines.

First responders deployed rafts and rescued dozens of people on both sides of the border.

The National Weather Service issued a rare flash flood emergency, an alert reserved for severe, life-threatening flooding capable of catastrophic damage. According to The Weather Channel, the flood crest early Thursday topped the all-time record at Copperhill, Tennessee, in 80 years of records.

The Weather Channel also reports 5 to 11 inches of rain fell over an area only 20 miles long by 10 miles wide in Fannin and Gilmer counties.

Per the AP via WSYR, the Toccoa River gauge in Copperhill hit a record 18 feet, 2 feet above the level forecasters call catastrophic, while Fannin County reported 57 swift-water rescues and Tennessee emergency managers 68.

A band of showers and thunderstorms raced ahead of a cold front across the southern Appalachians on the evening of Nov. 4, but the rain clusters kept stalling for several hours, producing rainfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour.

The mountainous terrain funneled rapid runoff into creeks and the Toccoa and Ocoee rivers, where the TVA managed high water at three hydroelectric dams. The overnight timing added danger, as many residents were likely asleep while the water rose.

The Weather Channel notes this was the latest in a string of Southern flash floods, following events in Florida and the Desert Southwest.

By Thursday afternoon the river had settled back within its banks and street sweepers were clearing mud, but the damage was extensive. McCaysville Police Chief Michael Earley told Fox5 Atlanta the water reached 6 to 7 feet downtown and that one of his police cars floated downriver.

Business owner Hugh Rogers estimated $200,000 to $300,000 in inventory destroyed at his store. The flood knocked out the water treatment plant, prompting a boil water advisory, and complicated rescues through cellphone and power outages.

The town's downtown was also flooded in August, and Earley called a second damaging flood in three months devastating heading into the Christmas season.