Video: Residents Look Forward After Tuesday’s Flood, City Leaders Revamping Plans

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COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Tuesday’s torrential rain pushed its way through Columbus, and now, the clean up begins.

The Chateaux Holly Hills Apartment complex was flooded as powerful currents pushed their way through, leaving many residents without a place to stay.

Today, city workers assessed the damage and worked to come up with a solution to this recurring problem.

“It was a lot of flooding and the water was up to your waist,” said Chateaux Apartment resident, Jennifer Lockhart.

Lockhart’s apartment has major water damage.

She says it took only minutes for the water to rise.

“And I put some little boards down so I could walk across, when I went upstairs and came back down, those boards were floating on the floor. And the water, probably about 2 feet high inside,” said Lockhart.

She has only lived in the apartment for a few months. Last year, her home was destroyed by fire.

Now, Lockhart finds herself salvaging what she can after another disaster.

“I was asking the landlord would our things be covered, she said if you have renters insurance or maybe flood insurance, I don’t have either,” said Lockhart.

This isn’t the first time this apartment complex has seen flash flooding.

Now, city leaders are re-thinking their plans for this area.

” We’ll go back to the drawing board and look to see if there is something we can do for this particular situation, in my ward, or at least I will do that, but we have in the past tried to make some improvements up here, keeping the ditch cleaned out and rip-rapping the ditch with rock to keep it from washing,” said Ward 6 Councilman, Bill Gavin.

Councilman Gavin says flooding is a city-wide problem and it will take several million dollars to fix the problem.

“70% of Columbus is built on swamp land, for people who don’t know, the other portion is we did a study several years ago to come in and fix some of these drainage problems, that was at a cost of 70 million dollars. There is no grants to go get to fix this problem,” added Councilman Gavin.

With 20 units damaged, many people are having to find a new place to live.

“It’s another loss,” added Lockhart.

No one was injured in Tuesday’s flash flood.

Repairs will begin immediately at the damaged units.