MACON, GA - I'm not sure every cloud has a silver lining. But those nasty nimbus clouds that dumped 20 inches of rain on us in July 1994 certainly did.

Of course, we had no way of realizing it at the time. A tropical storm named Alberto misbehaved on his jaunt through Georgia, unleashing the worst natural disaster in state history. Flooding from the storm killed 34 people and caused an estimated $1 billion in property damage.

History refers to it as the Great Flood of 1994, although there was absolutely nothing great about it - unless you're describing the magnitude of the mess left in its wake.

Read more here . It takes the writer about halfway through the article to get to the playground, but it's a really nice story.

Other tidbits from the article

• After a "100-year flood", Macon decided to move it's water treatment plant to higher ground. That freed up the old property (apparently a beautiful place right on the river) to build a park.
• Part of the park plan is a 4,000 square foot playground, built by volunteers and led by Frank Kelly ("a well-known and well-respected orthopaedic surgeon in Macon").
• As a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Kelly has worked as a volunteer in building similar playgrounds in San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago and New Orleans.
• At the time, he had no idea about where to put it or how to pay for it. So he registered for a KaBOOM! "University of Play" workshop in Chicago.
• At the workshop, Kelly happened to run into Donna Jennings and Wendy Boston, two members of the Junior League of Macon. They were there on a similar, but separate, fact-finding mission. Hey, they all asked, what are you doing here? Then came the consensus.
• The groups committed to raising $160,000 for the playground. They secured a gracious grant for half of that sum from the Peyton Anderson Foundation.
• "It will be one of the best things to happen to our community in my lifetime," Kelly said.