On the late afternoon of August 24, Petal resident Kim Turner sat on the tailgate of a pickup truck, helpless, and watched as her home on East First Avenue steadily took on water from nearby Greens Creek, which flooded over as a result of the intense rains that have pounded Mississippi over the past week.
Turner was one of several dozen residents in Ward 1 who were affected by the flooding, in an area that has for quite some time experienced those issues. And while most of those residents have not seen that extent of flooding in several years, Turner said it’s somewhat of a common occurrence at her residence.
“Once the creek rises, and it crosses the road here, it’s not long … before it will be ‘white-capping’ right here,” she said. “It’ll be knee-high, and it’ll be just beneath the windowsills at (my place).
“I already have two inches of water in my laundry room, and there’s nothing you can do. You just pick up what you can get off of the floor. I have renters’ insurance, but it doesn’t cover floods. Now, if the roof came off and I was flooding by rain, my renters’ insurance would cover it, but not rising water.”
On the day of the flooding, The Washington Post reported that up to a foot of rain had fallen across parts of the state, leading to multiple flash-flood emergency warnings and several road closings. Similar rainfall totals occurred in parts of western Alabama, Louisiana and Texas.
Mayor Tony Ducker said like many municipalities, Petal isn’t built to handle that amount of rainfall.
“I haven’t seen the totals yet, (but) we do have a couple of areas that are going to cost some money to get some fixes done,” he said. “Sherry Lynn Drive has a culvert that is blown out; that’ll probably be pretty expensive to fix.
“We’re going through the budget right now, and this is why it’s important to have kind of a cushion for these unexpected things that pop up like this. In the big picture, when Greens Creek and Matthews Branch take all the water they can take, it makes it tough getting that water out of here. It does stretch our resources, from the street department, the water department, the fire department and police department, who all get involved in a situation like this.”
Ducker said the flooding, in big part, was caused by saturation from the rains, which by that time, had occurred for several days in a row.
“I think around 2018 we had a situation like this, and I think it was 2014 that the (Leaf) River got up so high that it was causing a problem with (water) coming back in there,” he said. “So it makes it more difficult, especially when we need to improve some of our ditch and drainage situations.
“But if you make them too wide and too deep, it also creates an avenue for the water to come back at you at some point, so we’ve got to be really smart about how we do it. That being said, it would cost millions of dollars if we went in and did a wholesale change. I think in a situation like this, when you get this much rain in this amount of time, there’s probably not a circumstance where we would be able to solve every situation.”
Some residents, such as Turner, believe there is not much more city officials can do to alleviate the problem, as the matter has been addressed for at least 35 years without a solid answer.
“People say (it would fix it) if the drains were cleared, but the drains were clear,” she said. “The creek, they’ve widened it, so I don’t know if it is fixable, but I would hope that they could (do something).”
Other residents, such as Bernice Hust, who has lived on East First Avenue for 43 years, feel city officials could do a better job of alleviating the problem.
“There is a problem right down here with a beaver dam, and we’ve asked the city and asked the city to come clean it out,” she said. “They came and said they were going to clean it out, but they’ve done nothing.
“(A city official came here), and my husband took him down and showed him where it was just grown up and whatever, and they called it a beaver dam. Anyway, they’ve not even attempted to come and do (anything with) it.”
Some solutions to the problem have been offered, with the most recent being from Ward 1 Alderman Gerald Steele. Late last year, Steele offered to the Petal Board of Aldermen his Steele Plan, which is designed to aid stormwater runoff throughout the ward by way of creating and maintaining ditches and channels. Board members approved that plan, but shortly thereafter Ducker vetoed certain portions of the plan, saying Steele’s proposed timeline was not adequate to perform the ditch work needed to relieve flooding in certain areas of the city.
Since then, some progress has been made on the plan, but Steele said August 24’s events could have been prevented had the plan been followed in full. In recent weeks, Steele has expressed concern that although some ditches are being maintained, that process is not happening in the order outlined in the Steele Plan.
“What I’m seeing just breaks my heart,” he said. “From Day One, I feel like if that had been done, none of these houses would be threatened right now.
“I have seen it (get this bad), and right now, I’m on Bell Street looking at these ditches that they dug out that I asked them not to dig out. I’ve got residents complaining that when they came and dug this out, it got worse. I had asked them not to do this, and (since then) it’s gotten worse.”
About three months ago, city engineer John Weeks conducted a cursory report for a solution regarding flooding in Ward 1, particularly in the areas of Kola and East Second streets.
“I hope this is a good reminder and helps to speed up the process,” Steele said.
Ducker said the flooding makes officials feel almost helpless, as even clearing out Greens Creek and widening Matthews Branch may not alleviate the problem.
“You would love to see Matthews Brach a little deeper and wider, but then that kind of brings the Leaf River back into play,” he said. “If the Leaf River ever comes back up, you could be pushing water back up Matthews Branch in certain situations.
“But there’s a lot of different factors into this, (such as) making sure houses get built a foot above the road. Things of that nature are very important. It’s a learning experience; fortunately, it doesn’t happen that often to this extent, so it does give you a chance to ride around and see it.”
