PICAYUNE —
“I have seen water in places this time, where I have never seen water before,” said Daryl Smith on Friday as he looked at the rising water encroaching on a city street.
Smith, who heads the city’s maintenance department and has worked for the City of Picayune for years, was checking the closure of East Canal Street at Loftin Street;
Residents along Loftin Street, who have been flooded numerous times by Bay Branch, say this might be the worst, even surpassing the flooding of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Arthur Williams, who lives at 110 South Loftin, says it’s the worst he has seen since he built his home here in 1977. He says he’s been flooded nine times since 1977.
Said Williams on Friday morning as the East Hobolochitto crested, “It came up fast, and it’s still coming up, and it is already at the level I remember it being at during Katrina.”
On Friday he had six inches of water in his home.
Emergency management officials said the East and West Hobolochitto creeks were expected to crest on Friday, as they were gorged by the runoff from the torrential rains that fell during Hurricane Isaac, which sent rain-swollen feeder bands over Pearl River County for three days, dumping close to 20 inches of rain on the county.
Pearl River County was in the dangerous northeast quadrant, where the heaviest rains fall and stiffest winds blow. While the winds weren’t that bad, possibly gusts of 60 miles per hour, the rains were relentless and fell for four days, Tuesday through early Friday morning.
The hurricane stalled as it came ashore near Houma, La., Tuesday night, and did not move out completely until early Friday morning. It crept along at six miles per hour after beginning its northerly march from where it initially had stalled.
The two creeks drain central and western Pearl River County from Poplarville down to behind the Hermitage in Picayune, where they merge, and become Hobolochitto Creek, and then the main creek flows southwest to the Pearl River.
Flooding also was reported on Twisted Oak Drive near the Hermitage as the creek inundated portions of Northwest Picayune.
Ronald McDougle, who lives on the north end of Loftin, said he has lived at the corner of Loftin and Washington streets for 40 years, and he estimates that he has been flooded about 14 times.
He agrees with Williams that this might be the worst. “I have tried to get help, but they say I make too much money, so I have to bear the expense every time.”
Both Williams and McDougle say they would sell out, but it’s too late now. “Who would purchase this property with its history,” said McDougle. “I am determined to stay here until I pass away. I will never give up or give in, although my family has suffered.”
The problem at Loftin is that Bay Branch, which flows into East Hobolochitto Creek, backs up when East Hobolochitto backs up with runoff water, as it tries to join West Hobolochitto to form the main stream.
“East Pearl backs up, then Hobolochitto backs up, then East Hobolochitto backs up and then Bay Branch backs up, and then my living room backs up,” says Williams, who works at Wal-Mart. So what can be done about the problem?
Williams said Picayune officials looked at it and cleaned out Bay Branch one time and that helped some. “But it would cost a lot of money to fix the problem,” says Williams. “You’d really have to start on the creek and channel it to make it flow faster, but you would have all kinds of problems with getting government permits and where would Picayune or the county get the money to do that, what with all the government budget problems.”
Williams said FEMA offered to buy him out after Katrina, saying it would give him 80 percent of the value if Picayune put up the remaining 20 percent, but he said city officials wouldn’t do it.
McDougle was standing at the end of his driveway on Thursday, watching the water rise, headed for his home. “They say I make too much money, but I guarantee you that they helped some people who make more than I do. Sometimes it all makes you wonder about government aid to people like me. Some get it and some don’t. You explain that to me; explain that to my family,” said McDougle.
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WATCHING THE WATER RISE Ronald McDougle watches the water rise on Loftin Street at the end of his driveway. McDougle said he is determined to stay where he is because no one would buy his property because it has flooded so often. (Photo by David A. Farrell)
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