MARIETTA - Residents are making the best of sleeping on cots at the Cobb Civic Center after being forced out of their homes by floodwaters.

The Red Cross chose the civic center as the one site in Cobb to use as its shelter for flood victims.

As of Tuesday afternoon, about 300 people had registered to stay in the shelter since it opened Monday, with most hailing from Cobb and Douglas counties, said Lisa Matheson, public affairs volunteer with the Red Cross.

"They came in here yesterday and some people were still wearing clothes that were wet up to their chest," Matheson said.

Perched on a cot next to his mother, freelance photographer Cosmin Dragoiescu, of Austell, said he's never experienced anything as terrifying as the flood waters that entered his home Monday. And that includes growing up in then-communist Romania, he said, describing how he and his mother moved to the U.S. 19 years ago.

Dragoiescu, 40, and his mother, Elena Bercu, 58, who live in a two-story condo in the Sweetwater Valley Complex off Clay Road near Austell Road, had lived through the so-called 100 year flood that struck the area a few years back, surviving it high and dry.

"So we figured it's never going to come if it's a hundred year flood, and when the rains were coming and coming and coming we thought it would just be a nuisance," he said.

But when he looked outside to see the floodwater was lapping against the door of his car Monday, he began to worry, moving the vehicle to higher ground. Returning to his house on foot, he noticed the floodwaters had already seeped into his condo.

"It was just really bad. The carpet got soaked and it started bubbling. It was just amazing. The furniture started floating and it looked like that commercial for flood insurance. It looked like a bad B movie," he said.

As the water began to lap up the stairs, seeping into the electrical outlets, he knew he had to get his mother to safety.

"The problem was that the water outside the house was almost a foot higher than it was inside. We waded all the way up to the waist. I was wet up until midnight last night," he said.

The mother and son arrived at the Civic Center around 6 p.m. Monday and have nothing but praise for how they've been treated.

"They're kind. They're really kind. It's highly stressful. It could have been really bad. And considering how many children are here - I venture to say 50 - it was very quiet by 11 p.m. Midnight, it was very quite. I think we were probably the loudest ones here because we were gossiping and we just couldn't shut down," he said.

The troubling part is that they don't have flood insurance. But his mother, Bercu, remains optimistic.

"I'm happy I have life," she said. "I buy the things again, start the life again."

Added her son, "Once we calm down we can probably see the adventure part of this, but as far as locals here, you know, I just got to say the infrastructure was good. It's clean, it's safe."

On another cot sat Candatha Bland, 66, who is unable to get to her house off Old Alabama Road by Maxham Road in Austell.

A native of New Orleans and great grandmother of four, Bland moved to Austell in 2006 when her home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. As the rains poured Monday, she left her home to check on other family members. But by the time she returned, flood waters prevented her from returning home. She and other family members checked in at the Civic Center Monday night.

"I haven't seen the house since I left. I can't get to it," she said.

But don't expect Bland to complain.

"I just always make the best of a bad situation because you got to realize I lost everything in Katrina, and it wasn't nothing that I couldn't replace except for some pictures and stuff like that."

She said her large family made it out of New Orleans with everyone in tact.

"So I'm grateful about that. I'm not complaining about anything," she said.

Bland said she will deal with what she finds when she can return to her Austell house.

"Let me tell you something, it can't never be bad as when I went home in New Orleans, because at least I have the upstairs. In New Orleans it was the whole house," she said.

Sitting on the cot next to her, Bland's daughter, Grace Bland, of Powder Springs, was a little less tolerant of the situation.

"I would like for Obama to help us out here. I done been through Katrina, Ike and now this here. Please help us," she said.

Upbeat attitudes are not unusual at the shelter, said Matheson.

"People truly understand that everyone's going through this together and they really want to be flexible with one another. This is just like their home away from home. They can come and go as they need to. We just ask that they sign in and out for accountability purposes," she said.

The Red Cross provides shelter, food, emotional support, showers and first aid to the displaced people. The shelter will be open as long as it's needed, she said.

Added Candatha Bland, "No need complaining about something you have no control over, and I'm not worrying about it because that's material things. I am a blessed person and I just take it one day at a time. You got to realize that if things don't happen to you it wouldn't make you the person you are today."

Matheson encouraged residents to make financial donations rather than bring in supplies to ensure that all victims receive the same services. To make a contribution to the Metro Atlanta Red Cross, call 404-876-3706.