PASCAGOULA, Miss.—When water backs up near U.S. 90 and Market Street after heavy rain, is Pascagoula looking at a drainage problem, or the reality of living in a flat coastal city?
Flooding in late May sparked a broader online discussion about drainage, aging infrastructure, road conditions and city priorities. Nearly 4 inches of rain fell at Pascagoula Lott International Airport on May 28, according to city officials.
But Pascagoula City Manager Justin Larsen said the recent flooding was not as simple as a broken drainage system.
“We do have some areas of town that historically flood like this,” Larsen said. “The Live Oak corridor from Pascagoula Street to Market Street is an area that always floods, including Market Street.”
Larsen said the city’s drainage system can move water, but when heavy rain falls during high tide, the system can struggle to keep up.
“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,” Larsen said. “The perfect storm is when there’s a high tide.”
When Rain Meets High Tide
Robert Steiner saw the flooding from another part of town.
Steiner lives in Moss Point but grew up in Pascagoula and owns businesses in the city, including a boat rental company. He said he closely follows tides and weather conditions because of his work and lifelong experience on the water.
During the May 28 flooding, Steiner said water covered low-lying areas near River Road.
“It was basically a half-lane or a single lane going through there,” Steiner said.
Steiner said rising tides and heavy rainfall can create conditions where water has nowhere to go.
“If that point of (River) 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 (of rain) an hour,” he said. “The water in Pascagoula cannot go anywhere, so that’s a given at that point that it is going to flood—and it did.”
Larsen said the May storm was the first significant rainfall the city had seen since the fall.
He said the first major rain of the year often reveals drainage issues caused by leaves, limbs and yard debris blocking storm drains.
“We had several of those all over town where the drains were just sitting. The water wasn’t moving, so we go in there with the (vacuum) truck to extract the leaves,” Larsen said.
The city uses a vacuum truck to clear clogged drains when problems are identified. Larsen said crews do not clean every drainage box on a fixed schedule. Instead, public works employees monitor problem areas during storms and rely heavily on reports from residents.
“We really rely on citizens to let us know,” Larsen said. “They’re the eyes and ears of the city.”
Larsen said residents should report standing water when a drain that normally works stops functioning properly, but notes flooding does not always mean the drainage system has failed.
“It’s not necessarily an issue with the drainage system; it just can’t keep up when it comes that fast, especially at high tide,” Larsen said. “Give it a couple of hours and all that rain is gone, so it does its job—it just can’t always keep up.”
The Plan for Market Street Flooding
Larsen said the city is working on a long-term project aimed at reducing flooding near Market Street and U.S. 90.
Pascagoula received about $2 million through the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, or GOMESA, which shares federal offshore oil and gas revenue with Gulf Coast states and communities for coastal projects.
The funding supports the first phase of the Live Oak Drainage Improvement Project, extending from the riverfront to Pascagoula Street. Larsen said the city plans to seek additional legislative funding for later phases that would continue the project to Market Street.
“Once (the first phase) kicks off, we’ll go back to the Legislature and ask for funding for phases two and three,” Larsen said.
According to the city’s GOMESA funding application, the full project is expected to cost about $6.8 million.
Larsen said the project would replace drainage infrastructure beneath the roadway and improve drainage in an area that has experienced flooding for decades.
“This is finally going to address that drainage that we have there,” he said. Larsen said construction will be complex because engineers must work around water, sewer, drainage and other utility lines beneath the streets.
“It’s not an easy task,” he said. “There’s a lot under the streets that we’ve got to take into account.”
Beyond the Live Oak project, Larsen said the city maintains a 10-year infrastructure plan to track aging drainage, water and sewer systems and prioritize future improvements.
“Our infrastructure can be 50 years old in some places,” Larsen said. “We’re always working to improve it.”
The city is still completing design work on the first phase before construction can begin.
This article first appeared on RHCJC and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
