Flood waters invade a Starkville family’s home

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – In Starkville, the heavy rainfall brought flooding to streets and neighborhoods.

After Saturday morning’s heavy rain, this is what it looked in Luke Buckner’s house.

He and many of his neighbors on South Washington Street are cleaning up after water rushed in.

“We saw the weather of course so we knew it was kinda coming and basically without a lot of rainfall we’ve known that ditch would back up and so we kind of expected it, but it was raining really real hard. I was outside watching and it wasn’t too bad,” said Buckner.

Then things changed for the worse.

“Then the rain kind of stopped it was kind of like it is now and I was like “okay we’re okay” next thing I know I just see water coming, flying down the ditch and it just kept getting worse and worse and higher and higher even though it wasn’t even raining very hard it just kept coming,” said Buckner.

Before long, the rising water was creeping into the house and saturating their backyard.

“It was above my boots you probably can’t see that either so maybe one to two feet one and half feet something like that,” said Buckner.

Buckner said his and neighbors will spend the coming days trying to dry out and clean up their homes.

Between 2.5 to 3 inches of rain fell in the Starkville and Oktibbeha County area in a short time frame.

Oktibbeha County Emergency Manager Kristen Campanella said the county’s road department is out of barricades.

That’s because the county has a lot of roadways underwater, especially unpaved areas.

There is so much flash flooding statewide that there are no barricades to borrow

Campanella cautions residents to be careful driving, especially during the overnight hours where water could be covered roadways and may not be visible.