Residents rescued from homes as heavy rain causes major flooding across region

SOUTH MISSISSIPPI (WXXV) — Heavy rain drenched south Mississippi on Thursday, creating dangerous conditions for residents and motorists across the coast.

Emergency crews have been working around the clock, monitoring flooded streets, responding to high-water incidents, and rescuing residents trapped by rising floodwaters.

“Across the coast from the complete east side all the way to the west side… it’s flooded everywhere just about. We’ve been working nonstop just about since probably about 5:00 this morning. As far as road flooding goes, we started over in Pearl River, and it’s moved to Hancock County, and Harrison and Stone, all the way over to George and Jackson county. So we’re seeing those effects across the whole district,” said Landon Orozco with the Mississippi Highway Patrol.

Highly traveled roadways like Highway 49 in Stone County were impassable in areas around the Red Creek in Perkinston. Rescue boats were deployed in the area, with crews pulling people from campers and homes. The Stone County Sheriff’s Department released photos of those rescue efforts. As far as we know, no injures have been reported.

“That was one of the worst places we’ve had flood so far today. But you’ve had floods across the coast today, that’s just one of the bigger areas that we’ve had flood, and one of the the higher spots that we’ve had to help with,” said Orozco.

Thursday afternnon, Sangani Boulevard in D’Iberville looked almost like a river. A semi truck could be seen driving through the heavily flooded roadway, followed by an SUV, which stalled and began floating down the road.

Highway 26 at Bluff Creek in Stone County was closed due to the road being impassable. And Highway 90 in Biloxi and Gulfport were completely under water in some areas, leaving vehicles stuck, and forcing drivers out of their cars.

In Woolmarket, a road was completely washed out.

“You never know what could happen, so make sure you stay buckled up. Make sure you slow down a little bit. Your tires may not be as good as you think they are, so make sure you slow down, make sure you take those areas with caution. As you do travel on these county roads, many of them could be a little more flooded than what the state highways are, so we urge everybody to make sure on these county roads to slow down,” Orozco said. “And if they do see water going across the road, just stop and wait it out. Turn around. Like we say many times – turn around, don’t drown.”

The Mississippi Highway Patrol will be keeping an eye on receding water on roadways, as well as continued flooding expected in some areas.

“The way that its going right now, we don’t see that there will be any closures, as far as the main highways, going into tomorrow. We’ll still monitor though in areas that may receive later, kind of like a delayed flooding from water a little further up north. Once it starts coming down this way, traveling this way from all that rain, we’ll see more areas get more water than others, so we’ll monitor that as it goes as well,” he said.

For a full list of road closures, click here.

If you come across any flooded roadways that may not have been reported, reach out to your local sheriff’s department. We will continue to provide updates on those flooding conditions across south Mississippi through the rest of the week.