Heavy flooding causes road closures in Lowndes County

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Over the past several days Lowndes County has received almost four inches of rainfall.

The rainfall has caused many roads in the area to become washed out or even closed.

Road Management crews have been out since early Friday morning trying to clear the roads of flood waters.

“We’ve actually brought crews out all over the county and started un-stopping the culverts and all that because anytime you have a big rain it brings stuff out of the woods and everything and clogs the culverts and our main thing today is to make sure we can get the water flowing and keep it flowing to drain off as quick as possible…We’ve got about six or seven roads that are actually closed now because of high water that’s not drained off and all but we had one road that the culvert is washed slap out on it. We’ve been able to put it back together and got it open again,” said Road Management Director Ronnie Burns.

“We’ve also had several roads that have been closed. Gatlin, Alomar, Spurlock road, Old Macon road, Dickerson road, all those roads are presently closed,” said Lowndes County EMA Director Cindy Lawrence.

Although road crews want to get everything back up and running as soon as possible, they say their primary concern is keeping everyone safe.

“I want to urge people more than anything and if we’ve got road closed signs up don’t go through the high water because it’s very dangerous. I’ve noticed several vehicles today going through the road closed signs. That’s the most dangerous thing you can do because the road can be washed out or anything like that when you go through it so I advise them if you see a road closed sign turn around,” said Burns.

“The one thing we want to say to citizens, please do not remove the barriers. The barriers are there for a purpose because the roads are flooded, and if they’re washed out it could cause many hazards. It could either cause problems with your vehicle or if you try to walk the waters, you could easily be drowned,” said Lawrence.

If you find yourself caught in the middle of a flood, there are a few things you can do.

“There’s nothing we can do to prevent the rain from coming, but we can ask our citizens who live in low lying areas to please monitor the weather closely. If you need to evacuate, you can call 911 to let them know the water is around your house and you need to back away from your home so we can get shelters open and come and assist in the evacuation of that area,” said Lawrence.

Road Management says they hope to have all the roads back open in the next day or two, but more rain is expected to come later this week and early next week.