Why Lake Lanier Has Killed So Many People

Lake Lanier is the deadliest water in Georgia — and 50 feet down, a whole drowned forest still stands where homes, churches, and graves used to be. An hour north of Atlanta, seven million people a year come to swim and boat on Lake Lanier. Almost none of them know what they're floating over. When the Army Corps of Engineers closed Buford Dam in 1956 and let the Chattahoochee River back up into the hills, they flooded a whole valley — farms, roads, churches, and the people's graves — and never cleared it first. Fifty feet down, in cold and total dark, an entire forest is still standing where it grew. That drowned forest is a big part of why Lake Lanier has killed so many people. Divers who recover bodies here work by feel in 42-degree water, through trees strung with decades of fishing line, and by their own count around 30 people who went under this lake were never found. Above the surface, Lanier takes close to ten lives a year — on water that's calm and bright the whole time. But the trees are only half of it. The ground beneath this lake was taken once before the water ever came, from more than a thousand Black residents driven out of Forsyth County a century ago, near a settlement called Oscarville. People say Lake Lanier is cursed. The truth about how it was built, and who was forced off the land to make room for it, is heavier than any ghost story. This is why Lake Lanier is the most dangerous lake in Georgia — and it isn't slowing down. ▶️ WATCH NEXT:    • Deadly Waters of the South   👉 SUBSCRIBE:    / @drownedsouth   💬 Have you ever been out on Lake Lanier — did it ever feel like something was under you? ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 What's under Lake Lanier 01:48 The valley they put under water 03:27 What the divers meet in the dark 05:11 The one the lake kept hidden 06:37 What happened here before the water 08:18 The curse, and the colder truth 09:38 Why Lake Lanier keeps killing ⚠️ Every location and case in this video is real. Some footage is illustrative. #LakeLanier #Georgia #DrownedSouth