In 2003 it was an overnight storm that put West Georgia residents on floodwatch. This year, it’s been a low-pressure system spinning in the Southeast for more than a week that even has some animals looking to line up two by two.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday it’s operating the Chattahoochee Basin “for one of (our) primary missions, flood control.”

“The reservoir level at West Point Lake is expected to crest near 638 mean sea level over the next few days, about 3 feet above its normal summer level,” corps officials said. “Water releases from West Point Dam will be increased over the next 24 hours but are not expected to cause flooding.”

Upstream on the Chattahoochee River at Franklin, the “usual spots,” such as the riverfront park, were under water, Emergency Management Director Chief Scott Blue said. The U.S. 27 bridge remained open, although state Department of Transportation workers were monitoring the buildup of debris on the north side of the bridge as more water from northern tributaries, which also have been flooding, arrived.

“We’ve got a lot of water, but everything looks good right now,” Blue said, saying the DOT wasn’t foreseeing closing the bridge and further flooding is unlikely.

The city did have to shut down a sewage plant lift station along the river that flooded.

The Chattahoochee is expected to set an all-time record today at Whitesburg, in the southeast corner of Carroll County, at 31 feet.

Corps spokesman David Barr said the corps was releasing 39,200 feet per second from the opened dam gates Tuesday and planned to keep the gates open through late Thursday or early Friday. At that level, the river below the dam is not expected to get out of its banks.

The corps doesn’t expect to release more than 45,000 feet per second, which is good news for West Point. City Manager Ed Moon said in an e-mail to City Council members Tuesday the city’s flood stage is 46,000 feet per second. If releases ever were bumped to 50,000 feet per second, water would reach the edge of the city’s fire department parking lot and begin to impact other areas.