Hundreds Affected By Flooding On Gulf Coast

An almost solid week of rain on the Gulf Coast has left hundreds with flooded homes and businesses. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

It’s estimated that almost a foot of rain has fallen in some areas of the Gulf Coast in the last week. That’s caused major flooding in some areas, especially in Jackson County. That’s where Allen Adams is standing right off of Highway 90 in Moss Point, about a foot away from an alligator.

“She’s about 9, 9 ½ to 10 feet long. She got out she’s an escapee, a convict.”

Adams is the owner of Gulf Coast Gator Ranch, and he is in the process of trying to locate 40 alligators that have escaped.

“The alligators in the pen, the fence is about six foot, five and a half to six foot high, they went actually over the fence. The water got that high, in order for them to swim over the top, and that’s how they escaped.”

There’s still water in some homes along the coast, and streets that remain impassable, but the water is receding. The problem, says Donald Langham, director of the Jackson county emergency management is that the ground is already so saturated that it won’t be able to absorb anymore,

“It’s a good possibility it is going to aggravate the problem any amount of rain we get, it doesn’t matter how small it is. The grounds are already saturated. The water is having a real slow time running off, so any amount of rain is not going to be good.”

And with more storms predicated for later today and this weekend, it doesn’t look like the coast is going to get much of a chance to dry out.