JACKSON COUNTY - Fourth highest since 1909
Pascagoula recorded 8.48 inches of rain, the fourth-highest rainfall in
a 24-hour period since 1909. The highest was 9.43 inches in 1916.
The Southeast Mississippi Chapter of the Red Cross opened a shelter at
the Jackson County Fairgrounds at Friday night.
Moss Point used a county dump truck to evacuate Frances and Emmeett
Holder from their home on Terrance Street on Friday morning.
Their neighborhood flooded, as did side streets all along Martin Luther
King Jr. Drive. Firefighters went in for the Holders wearing waders and
using the tall truck because Emmeett needed kidney dialysis and their 2005
Toyota was in water up to the door openings.
"They used a dump truck because they had no other way in,"
said Emmeett Holder, 64. The two firefighters locked their hands and told
him to lay back, carried him out and then returned for Frances, 66.
"I just wanted to get out," she said. "The water was
past my knees and halfway up the truck."
The Holders' street was flash flooding from heavy rains. Worse news for
some is that runoff from heavy rains throughout the Pascagoula River
watershed is ahead. So instead of water levels in rivers and creeks in the
county dropping, by Monday they are likely to rise.
On the other side of the county, along Fort Bayou, Virginia Shelton,
84, stayed in her home on Ocean Springs Road near Interstate 10 as water
surrounded and crept up the blocks her home is built on.
Neighbors stood outside and watched the water jump the road like a
fast-moving river.
Shelton was alone Friday afternoon but expected her sons within hours.
She had prepared by filling her tub and pitchers with fresh water, making
extra coffee and tea and cooking some things in advance in case she loses
power.
"I've never seen anything like this before, except during the
hurricanes," she said. "But I'm very comfortable. I'm not
afraid. If it gets any higher, I'll leave."
Jackson County Civil Defense Director Butch Loper said he asked for an
emergency proclamation early and by Friday afternoon a MEMA representative
was in the county giving assistance. Schools were closed. And the Red
Cross opened a shelter on the county fairgrounds at 6 p.m.
In Vancleave, sections of Mississippi 57 were closed for a half-mile
because of high water. Sections of Wade-Vancleave Road also flooded.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation said 57 would be closed
for several hours into the night.
Jackson County Sheriff's officials sent an amphibious vehicle to the
St. Andrews neighborhoods as a precaution to help stranded residents, but
no rescues were necessary, Sheriff Mike Byrd said.
Thursday night's heavy rains swamped several streets along the St.
Andrews Golf Course, overtaxing the neighborhood drains.
Water encircled Virginia Kelly's home at 219 Tantallion Drive and
seeped into it along exterior walls. By late Friday morning, she had
soaked most of it up with towels and old rugs. She considers herself
lucky.
"We have been fighting this for 11 years," Kelly said.
"We begged the county to come out here and put in another drain but
nothing has been done. Now I just accept it and hope and pray that [the
rain] does not do any more damage."
