Cloudmont, Georgia

Cloudmont, Georgia is a little community sitting on top of Lookout Mountain nowhere near all the fun stuff in Chattanooga. It was named as such for the dozens of tornadoes that sweep through the community every year. The name comes when a local youth said in 1959 as a black funnel was approaching "What's that fucking cloud doin'?". The boy died in the tornado, which was rated an F4 and leveled most of the town. Aside from tornadoes, you can find a few rock houses built to withstand the weaker funnels, some scrubby pine trees (about all that can grow there due to the weather) and a rocky bluff with a gully going through it that turns into a creek for a day or two when a big enough downpour hits. That creek leads to the town's pride and joy Cloudmont Falls.

History

Cloudmont was conceived by a hearty entrepreneur known as Richard Snaught. It was during the Roaring 20's where he blew a wad trying to grow his baby into a contemporary tourist town. He hoped to capitalize on the same success that the town of Lookout Mountain did. The problem was, despite both being on the Lookout Mountain plateau, Cloudmont is in the middle of fucking nowhere, and the climate discouraged residents from moving there. Of course, locals laughed as Dick spent all his money trying to get the town started in the disaster prone town. Before he went broke, though, he died in an F3 tornado that took out his house in the town that he was living in a year after he built it. It was a sad climax for such a big dreamer who hoped to erect a town.

Climate

Cloudmont tends to have four distinct seasons: perpetual fog, spring tornado season, "hot and sticky" and fall tornado season, which brings a few pretty leaves on the snaggled trees. Surprisingly it is the fog, not the tornadoes that keeps the population low aside from 2005. The fog tends to last from December-February often accompanied by drizzle and periods of moderate rainfall making Cloudmont Falls flow. Spring, however, has tornadoes that pretty much get started right off the bat. In fact, the tornadoes that hit this little burg are 6900 times the state average.

Population

The current population consists of 69 full time residents with 100% listing as heterosexual, though households with two males as residents are reported as higher on average here than anywhere else in the state. In fact, the lack of married couples in the town is rather unusual in the area, but more common in areas where outdoor recreation opportunities are more widely available. The town has the lowest average birth rate of anywhere in the state with zero couples reporting children but the highest AIDS rate in the state.

Crime

"Assault" is the highest reported crime in the town with drug busts also being common until recently. Murder has also been reported. The local sheriff reports drug use in the town has been eradicated. Murder reports have also plummeted while they have skyrocketed in the nearby town. The current sheriff is also a resident of Cloudmont.

Girl Scout Camp

The local girl scout camp is considered one of the finest in the state. It is heralded as the perfect location for tomboys to become women, just so long as they stay upstanding Christian women who give up their tomboy ways when the milk jugs appear. Many male residents of Cloudmont work at the center, which is the only employment in the city. The girl scout camp is seen as the last place for girls to do their tomboy ways, thus manly activities such as rock climbing, hiking, basketball and archery are encouraged along with baking cookies. The girl scout camp was once a boy scout camp, but tales of abuse led state leaders to change it to a girl scout camp in 1985 to see if that did not solve the problem. No abuse has been reported since the popular and successful change.

Religion

Cloudmont surprisingly is an anomaly in the religious beliefs of the county, which are 69% Baptist, 39% Holy Roller and 25% Wiccan/Satanic. Cloudmont is Atheist (55%), Southern Baptist (100%) and Catholic (10%) along with a surprising number of Buddhists. However, 100% of the residents all say they were saved in a Baptist church. Views in the town are also far more traditional than most with residents almost universally supporting tenants of the Christian right. Eric Rudolph once talked at a nearby local church, though no church buildings exist in the town itself. The last one, a Holy Roller church, was destroyed in the F5 tornado in 2005 where 69 people died halving the city's population including the last female residents.

Local ministers regularly preach about the tornado affliction in Cloudmont, decrying that the "hand of God is punishing the sins of Cloudmont", all which highly religious Cloudmont residents decry as ludicrous. Oddly, the pastor that made that remark was killed in the 2005 tornado in Cloudmont. This might also explain the growth of the Wiccan religion as traditional Christian avenues to stop the onslaught of whirlwhinds did not seem to work.

Scenery

Located on top of a big limestone plateau, there is always much to see. Cloudmont Falls (when it ever flows) is a picturesque fall on the side of town. Views from the bluff are fantastic when it's not foggy or the summer haze doesn't block everything out. Exploring caves is fun, too, but a caution to visitors not to go by Cloudmont Cave since it is used by the local Wiccans for their evil, pagan, Satanic rituals. Since nobody is open about their connection to Wicca, it is impossible to tell who they are since they may also be Baptist. Also interesting is the 300 feet deep Snatch Sink, which is located a few miles south of town accessible by a trail lined with poison oak and old tires. Nearby in Cloudmont Canyon is Giant Rock, a tall slender formation that is reported to have a phallic shape and remains one of the most photographed sights in the state. Postcards for the town tend to show Giant Rock and Snatch Sink side by side.

Tornadoes

With a much higher than average incidence of wild winds, large parts of the area are rather sparsely forested due to the fact that a tree just doesn't stand much of a chance and neither does a house. The town receives, on average, 35 F3, 10 F4 and five F5 tornadoes per year. City hall itself has to be rebuilt three times per year, and the rock house design is used to hide the fact the buildings are actually bunkers bolted to the ground with steel frames to withstand the winds. After three F5's hit on the same day in 2005, residents vowed they would never rebuild the town but the stupid gay motherfuckers did it anyway.

Geographic Wonders and Conundrums

Google Maps shows parcel properties throughout the town. However, there is no road network and likely no water and sewer infrastructure. Cloudmont was planned to be a city on the state line, probably to run Alabama for its money for lower sales tax, gas tax and marrying your second cousin is legal in the county. It has apparently suffered the "Lamar water shortage" syndrome that it cannot provide enough water to let the town grow. The nearest water source, the Tennessee River since it does not border Georgia, it is likely the town will never grow. However, family trees are growing inward at an exponential rate. Trailer park applications are often rejected by Walker County therefore, development might occur over the Alabama state line. That is also because DeKalb County, AL is proposing a county-wide law that you can marry your first cousin there for the new population growth. It is all dependant on the locals in Cloudmont if they are educated enough. That is because over the state line, television markets change from Atlanta to Chattanooga so the message may never be conveyed there. This is due to digital television signals being impossible to pick up because of land barriers such as mountains and satellite providers do not carry secondary television stations from Chattanooga. Cable TV never existed in this part of Walker County either.