Rain, rain, rain will it ever go away? Like many people, the supervisors in Carroll County are praying that the rain goes away – least enough for their roads to dry and get some much needed repairs done.
For the past few weeks, Carroll County, like a few of our neighboring counties, has been dealing with the aftermath of the flooding that happened on Feb 19-20, but they’re not out of the woods just yet. Forecasters said predicting that a severe storm will come through today, adding more rain to soaked roads, which could cost supervisors more money.
Carroll County Emergency Management Director Ken Strachan said damages have been assessed at $880,000, according to Supervisor Rickie Corley, president of the Board of Supervisors.
“The damage was widespread across all five supervisor districts, and there has been an effort to compile information across Carroll County,” Corley said.
Damage includes road closures, washouts, mudslides, water and sewer disruptions because of the flooding.
Strachan said in a release there was water damage in the Vaiden Clinic because of storm water getting into the building.
“The Carroll County Board of Supervisors have been aggressively working throughout their districts to compile information for the assessments to be turned into the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency,” Strachan said.
At their Feb. 25 board meeting, supervisors signed a proclamation of existence of a local emergency and sent a resolution requesting that Governor Phil Bryant declare a state emergency for the county. At their March 4 meeting, supervisors approved for Strachan to send letters to Rep. Bennie Thompson, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and Senator Roger Wicker for their support in a push to receive funding for the storm water damage.
However, Bryant has only declared a state of emergency in Columbus and Lowndes County where a tornado touched down causing damage and killed two people.
If, for some reason, Carroll County is not declared in the state of emergency, the money would come from their insurance, and with a claim already for their recreation park due to damage from another storm, that could be costly.
“We have completed all the forms required for MEMA, and have been collecting damage assessments with using photos,” said Strachan.
Last week, Strachan and MEMA officials met to assess damage throughout the county.
He told supervisors MEMA was able to bypass his network’s internet and download an app that will allow his to document damage even in places where he could not receive service in Carroll County through CSpire.
He said it’s a helpful resource because it sends pictures of the damage and location directly to MEMA. The storm did equal damage cause damage throughout every district. Strachan said plans are to have the assessments finalized in the next few weeks.
