Montgomery County fared better than Carroll County when nearly nine inches of rain fell Wednesday night and Thursday morning. While Carroll County sustained a great deal of damage included a breached dam, Montgomery County did have some roads damaged due to flooding, as well as some residents with water coming inside their homes.
Civil Defense and Emergency Management Director Allen Pratt said the county sustained damage on Scotland Shortcut Road, which is near Oldham Road just off of Highway 407 and Old Boyd Road in Poplar Creek. A portion of the road collapsed over a culvert when heavy rains washed out under the black top.
The Poplar Creek Volunteer Fire Department reported that Old Boyd Road had a culvert wash out and the road was under water. Bogushia Road, Green Road and a bridge on Highway 407 were also covered by water Thursday morning.
In Winona, some homeowners in low-lying areas reported water getting inside their homes. Some residents in the Barron and Dennis Street area attended Tuesday night’s meeting of the Winona Mayor and Board of Aldermen to express concerns about flooding due to a blocked drainage ditch in the area.
In Carroll County, flooding washed out a number of roads across the county, but the dam breach of one of the county’s watershed lakes was the most serious result of flooding.
The dam at Gee Lake, located near County Road 142 and south of Highway 82, breached due to the nearly 11 inches of rain that fell in a 24-hour period.
Gee Lake is located south of U.S. 82, near County Road 142. Water escaping from it, according to Strachan, would flow toward Pelucia Creek. The creek comes out of the Carroll County hills and travels southwest through Leflore County before emptying into the Yazoo River in the Rising Sun area.
“We went to the emergency spill way and started notifying citizens that the spillway had breached at Gee Lake and that the National Resource and Conservation Service, had examined the water shed lake earlier Thursday,” Ken Strachan, the Carroll County Emergency Management director, said. “Carroll County officials were notified at 9:11 p.m. Thursday night the damn had fully breached. I along with Sheriff Clint Walker, MDOT, Supervisor Fluker, Mississippi Highway Patrol, Carroll County Sheriff’s Department, first responders monitored the breach from the Peulica Creek and surrounding area late Thursday night into Friday morning,” he said.
According to Walker, no one was injured and no homes were damaged from the dam breach at Gee Lake.
