Many of the houses flooded by last week’s torrential rainfall didn’t have flood insurance, according to Leflore County’s emergency management director Fred Randle.
So far, 129 of the residences have been assessed for damage, and most were flooded by 6 inches of water or less, he said.
Statewide, at least 551 homes throughout the state have been affected, along with 17 businesses and 286 public roads and buildings, according to a preliminary report by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
Within Leflore County, Randle said he wasn’t sure how expensive repairs for homes would be.
One resident who lacked flood insurance and whose house was affected by last week’s flooding is Roberta Lee, who lives in the Glendale subdivision.
The neighborhood, located off Mississippi 430 South and just outside of Greenwood’s city limits, was inundated after a breach at Gee Lake in Carroll County last week sent a rush of water to the subdivision.
Lee, who has lived at her residence for 24 years, said neither she nor her neighbors in the subdivision knew about the breach when it happened.
Instead, she and others woke up early Friday morning to water seeping into their homes.
Now in her third hotel stay in the Greenwood area since having evacuated her home, Lee said that she was able to visit her house Monday to briefly assess the damage.
The floor is covered in water, the roof is leaking and mold is starting to develop, she said.
Lee said she had been on a flood insurance plan for 24 years, which would have covered the cost of flood-damaged components that make up a dwelling, such as flooring and sheetrock, and not the personal contents within a home.
However, sometime last year, Lee said she had received a letter that indicated to her that flood insurance for where she lives was no longer recommended.
Lee said Wednesday afternoon that she could not recall what entity had sent her that letter — she had previously told the Commonwealth that it may have been the Federal Emergency Management Agency, though Lee said she is now unsure and will have to check her home for the letter.
Regardless, because of the letter Lee received, she opted out of flood insurance this year.
A FEMA flood map of the Greenwood area flags the Glendale subdivision, as well as Mabyline Street in east Greenwood, which also dealt with significant flooding, as areas “with reduced flood risk due to levee.”
Randle said some possible reasons residents may not have flood insurance could be because of the cost or the fact that the areas they live in are not considered flood zones.
As far as residents in the county getting financial assistance from the government to assist with flood damages, Randle said that “FEMA is just not an open bank,” and that the process for relief from the government is a step-by-step process. Randle and his team have to follow federal government guidelines to determine what houses count as having dealt with significant major damage, he said.
“We have to do assessments on the homes to make sure that the damage occurred that they said occurred.”
In some cases, according to Randle, residents in the county have called to have their houses assessed for flood damage even though they suffered no damage from the flood.
Anyone with flood damage in the county is asked to report it to Randle by calling 662-453-1428.
- Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
