After 154 days of flooding from the Mighty Mississippi, Greenville has finally broken it’s record-breaking consecutive days of being above flood stage. But, it might soon reach flood stage again.
Mississippi Levee Board Chief Engineer Peter Nimrod said the Mississippi River got below its 48-foot flood stage Sunday. As of Tuesday afternoon, the river was at 46.5 feet. Despite how long the river has been above flood stage, Nimrod said there have been no significant problems with the levee, neither with under seepage or sand boils.
The river in Vicksburg has been above flood stage for 158 days and the river in Natchez has also reached record duration at being above flood stage for 201 days.
The river reached its crest at 55.5 feet June 12 on the Greenville gauge. Since then, it has been dropping, but slowly.
Once the river dropped below 50 feet, many of the residents living along Upper and Lower Lake Ferguson Road were able to start making their way back to their homes to begin the clean-up process.
“The power’s been cut back on so everyone at Lake Ferguson is back in clean-up mode,” Nimrod said.
Despite the lowering waters, Warfield Point Park still remains closed for the next several weeks because crews typically don’t begin to assess the area for damages until the river reaches 44 feet.
Even though the river is dropping for now, Nimrod said the river is expected to rebound some over the next few days, possibly reaching 48 feet once more before it begins to drop once more.
“It’s a little bit of a bounce back over the next few days but it’s going to drop out pretty significantly,” he said.
The river stayed above flood levels in Greenville since Feb. 18. It’s the fourth year in a row the river has reached above 54 feet in Greenville, which Nimrod said used to only occur once every 10 to 15 years. In the last 12 years, the river has reached that level six times.
During the 1927 flood, the river in Greenville was above flood stage for 115 days.
Backwater Levee
While the river is dropping to normal levels in Greenville, Nimrod said the Backwater Levee flooding is still a significant issue with water still sitting in many resident’s homes and on farmland.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Backwater was measuring at 95.7 feet, but much of the area is still above 96 feet. There are still about 500,000 acres of land under water, which includes 200,000 acres of farmland. At its peak, the Backwater reached 98.2 feet and affected 550,000 acres, including over 225,000 acres of farmland.
“Anytime you’re above 96 feet in the Backwater area, you’ve got homes under water,” he said. “There’s still water in homes and such, but it’s heading out with a good fall to it. It’s going to eventually work it’s way out of there.”
By the first week in August, Nimrod anticipates the Backwater dropping to about 90 feet, and it should be close to 70 feet by mid-to-late August.
“That’ll get most everything dry again, for the most part,” he said.
The Steele Bayou Structure Gates reopened June 20 after closing June 7, allowing a long build-up of flood waters to begin draining. Before then, the gates had been closed from Feb. 15 to April 1, then again from May 11 to May 23.
The Steele Bayou Structure acts as the outlet for all the Delta’s water to reach the Mississippi River. When it’s closed, the water piles up inside the levee system with nowhere to go, causing flooding inland. The flood, coupled with large amounts of rain this year, caused the water to rise significantly.
Many residents, farmers and state senators have voices their concerns to get pumps installed to take water over the levee and into the Mississippi River.
In a June 12 letter to President Donald Trump, state Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith asked to order temporary pumps to the area to begin pumping water over the levee and into the Mississippi River.
In the letter, Hyde-Smith renewed her advocacy for a permanent pumping station that would remove floodwater from the southern end of Mississippi’s Delta region. It’s been a long-sought and highly disputed project that was vetoed in 2008 by the George W. Bush administration as harmful to the region’s wetlands.
