Here in this area, we have experienced a lot of rainfall in the past month along with the storms. The weather has been the lead news story many nights on the national news, which shows that the severe weather has been widespread.
The first round of severe weather, that came with the tornado of March 14-15, brought a lot of flooding. When I talked to the National Weather Service in Jackson it was recorded here in Carroll County that there was 5.78 inches of rain over that time.
The very nature of flash floods makes them fast and very difficult to predict. Since they can occur without warning, it is no surprise that people can be seriously injured or killed by these natural disasters. Also, many flash floods occur at night while people are sleeping, adding to the risk. Flash floods are the number one weather-related killer in the U.S. according to the National Weather Service.
Just this past weekend in a twenty-four-hour period from Saturday to Sunday here in Carroll County, it was recorded that there were 3.5 inches-4 inches of rain according to the National Weather Service. Flooding can be an emotionally and financially devastating event. That is a lot of rainfall in a short period of time, these short periods of times with heavy rains just intensifies the damage with flooding.
Last year I was at a Civil Defense/Emergency Management Conference in Biloxi where the National weather Service had a class that I attended, and flooding was a big part of the discussion in that class on causing damage during weather events.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, an inch of water in a home could cause more than $25,000 in damage. Here as of this writing we are still doing damage assessments as we work toward a federal declaration. With the determination as always all disasters begin and end local.
Ken Strachan serves as the mayor of North Carrollton, is a member of the Mississippi Municipal League board of directors, and is a member of the MML education committee.
