Protecting the dozen or so residents in Freedom Village at any expense was stressed at the June 2 Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting by Tommy Benson.
Benson, who is the supervisors for the district, said he brought the issues at Freedom Village to the board’s attention because of prior flood event.
“The flooding issues there are reoccurring in the village,” Benson said.
Supervisors heard from Office of Emergency Management Director David Burford and County Engineer Mark Hooker Sr. on the matter.
“Water is going to come there the only way you are going to do that is that with pumps,” Hooker said.
Benson said a plan was needed to accomplish putting pumps in place before the next flood event.
Burford said rain and flash flooding were forecasted for Thursday, and Hooker added two days was insufficient time to execute a plan involving pumps.
“We need to do what we can,” Benson said.
There are approximately 12 to 14 homes in Freedom Village.
“There are a few homes still there,” Burford said. “I would suggest sandbagging those homes.”
Burford said though mitigation projects have been approved state-wide, when FEMA is involved the projects must meet cost benefit metrics.
In addition to sand bagging home at Freedom Village Burford suggested the county could buy pumps to move the water away from homes.
However, placing pumps in the area may present problems.
“If we send water across the field, that is a problem for someone,” Benson said.
Board Attorney Frank Power agreed.
“You have to be careful about liability sending the water across the field,” Power said.
Hooker said similar issues occurred in Belzoni.
“In Belzoni they put in a pump and damned up an area, rented some pumps and moved the water two miles north of town,” Hooker said. “It flooded thousands of acres and a farmer is suing them, even though they dammed it up to save houses.”
Both Hooker and Burford said if the board passed an order the work would be done, but cautioned to head the possible expense of the project to the county.
“Those few people are worth that money to me,” Benson said.
Hooker said, “We don’t have a problem doing the work. That’s not a problem. It is a matter of the board passing orders to do the work and deciding to spend the money to do the project.”
Tuesday afternoon Benson said a meeting was held and a plan in action.
“We are purchasing poly-bags, which are usually for irrigating,” Benson said. “But if you don’t punch the holes, and you fill them with water, the bags sit around the house and will keep water out.”
Benson said as a short term solution, each house will have poly-bags in place Wednesday afternoon at the county’s expense.
Long term solutions include levees around Freedom Village.
“Engineers are looking at ways to put levees around the area, at a foot and a half, to keep water out,” Benson said.
Emergency assistance funds will be applied for, Benson said, but are not assured.
“We will be taking every precaution that we can so those people in Freedom Village dont get flood,” Benson said. “It is the worst area affected. I have other people in my district who have same problem, but the people in Freedom Village have it the worst.”
Benson said the community receives water flowing south from north of Washington County and from Bolivar County.
“It will continue to flood that area every time until we do something about it,” he said.
Every time they get flooded, all the water from upper wash county and bolivar county Washington county. floods into that area. and it will not stop until something is done about it.
Burford agreed the area is a flood plain because of water draining from Bolivar County.
“There is not proper draining system for that area for the run off from Bolivar County,” he said. . “The existing drainage systems are not built to handle this much water in a short amount of time.”
Though Benson is hopeful emergency fund will reimburse county funds for the project, Burford is doubtful because of FEMA’s “cost benefit” metric.
“I can almost guarantee you that project would fail FEMA’s cost benefit analysis,” Burford said, noting the property value and low population in the area are factors.
