Concerns over flooding in the City of Pascagoula
When roads flooded near Highway 90 and Market Street in Pascagoula last month, residents started asking a familiar question: is the city dealing with a drainage problem or is flooding simply part of living in a low-lying coastal community?
Justin Glowacki with the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center spoke with city officials and residents about what caused the flooding and what comes next.
Nearly four inches of rain fell in Pascagoula on May 28.
That rain came during high tide.
City Manager Justin Larsen says that combination caused water to back up in areas that have flooded for decades. “We do have some areas of town that historically flood like this. The Live Oak corridor from Pascagoula Street to Market Street is an area that always floods.”
Larsen says the city’s drainage system can move water, but heavy rain during high tide can overwhelm it. “It doesn’t happen often, but when we get a lot of rain all at once, it can accumulate faster than it can get out through the drainage system.”
Robert Steiner grew up in Pascagoula and closely follows tides and weather conditions through his work on the water.
He says the flooding wasn’t a surprise. “Oh, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I absolutely knew it. If that point of the road is getting wet and the tide chart says we’re still getting water coming in, and we know that we’re about to get at that point over half an inch an hour, the water in Pascagoula cannot go anywhere. So that’s a given at that point that is going to flood, and it did.”
While city leaders say flooding can’t always be prevented during extreme conditions, they are working on a long-term solution.
Pascagoula has secured $2 million in federal GOMESA funding for the first phase of a three-phase drainage project.
The city says the full project to replace drainage under the Live Oak Corridor could cost nearly $7 million. “This is finally going to address that drainage that we have there.”
The city says planning for phases two and three is complete. Officials expect engineering work for phase one to be finished within the next few months.
