Monday, August 19, 2013

Clean up after flooding rain

The cleanup is now underway in many parts of Gulfport. This after at least five inches of rain in just one hour Sunday afternoon left much of the city in a soggy mess.

During the height of the storm, people who live on 33rd Avenue felt like prisoners. Sheila Boddie is one of these people.

"It was very high. It has everyone trapped in their homes, they couldn't get out of the driveways. They couldn't get down the street," Boddie explained.

Signs of the flooding can still be seen, from waterlogged yards to clogged drainage ditches. For one family on 53rd Avenue, Sunday was moving day. Nyeshia Winters recalled the moment.

"It was so bad. It was coming into our driveway and into our front door. We had to pile up all of our furniture and put it in the back room because it was like coming in our front door. It was just so bad yesterday," Winters said.

David Aycock's home barely stayed dry.

"We've had a lot of development out here. They've been filling in what used to be retention lakes and it's put a lot of stress and backed up a lot of water into the homes out here. We've had flooding issues in the past. We were nearly flooded again yesterday," Aycock said.

Several cars at a church on 28th street suddenly transformed into boats. Bridget Fells owned one of these vehicles and it may have been a total loss.

"According to the wrecker guy, they're going to probably total it because the water was up to the console in the car. It's very frustrating," Fells said.

While most homes in the downtown area escaped flooding, that was not the case along Highway 49 between 17th and 19th Streets. Several businesses flooded, including Cardinal Flowers. The flooding did not leave them with a very rosy feeling.

"Right now, we're finding more than usual structural damage because the water stayed in so long," Brewer explained. "It didn't come in and go out like it normally does so the water settled here for a while. So a lot of the wood and the cabinets and stuff like that are starting to go pretty bad right now," said William Brewer, owner of Cardinal Flowers.

Pretty bad would be an understatement. In addition to the flooding in Gulfport, other areas on the coast had problems because of the torrential rain. A few people had to be evacuated from homes in Moss Point, and there was street flooding in Biloxi, Ocean Springs, and Pascagoula.

Of course, during storm, much of Highway 90 along the beach in Harrison County was underwater.

www.wlox.com

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