Mississippi Flooding Recedes, but Farmers Still Struggle

Calhoun County farmland covered in water. Photo by DeAndria Turner.

For people living along the Pearl River at Jackson, the news is getting better. According to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), water has receded across the affected areas, and river levels will continue to fall throughout the week.

The bad news is that roughly 450 homes are damaged in Hinds and Madison Counties as a result of the flood. That number could increase as MEMA will conduct more in-depth damage assessments beginning Monday.

For the state’s farmers; however, once the floodwaters are gone, the problems will remain. In Calhoun County, at least a couple of times a year, residents are forced to deal with flooded roads and damaged homes, but for farmers like Perry Bailey, the periodic floods create a constant struggle to keep his family’s livelihood going.

“It’s actually been waist-deep where we’re standing right now,” Bailey said. He’s been a farmer for more than a decade but said heavy flooding like he’s seen this year never used to be so common.

“I seen it worse maybe one other time across this highway and that was maybe 20 years ago. It’s consistently getting worse.”

Bailey has had his current property since 2014, harvesting corn, milo, and beans, but over the last two years, he said he’s had to change his approach.

“I was row cropping, but the flooding issues kept getting worse, so I had to change my strategy to get it back in production.”

Now the land is full of oak trees, the only crop that Bailey said can survive the deep floodwaters.

“We wanted to leave it in row crops. That’s what we do, farm. But due to the blockage in the creek and the water backing up we were losing money each year it got underwater.”

Bailey says he and other local farmers need help.

“The Corps of Engineers should probably maintain the Yalobusha River. That’s the problem. The river will handle the water. It just can’t get through the debris.”

Farming runs through the Bailey family’s history. Perry Bailey said they won’t give up on the land even if they have to focus less on today and more on the future.

“I won’t see the harvest on these oak trees because it takes so long to grow, but my son and grandson will. That was the ultimate goal for them, try to make this land productive of some kind.”

Mississippi residents who have yet to report damage from the February flood event are still encouraged to do so by using MEMA’s self-reporting tool. The link can be found on the agency’s website.

Story contributed by DeAndria Turner, dtturne2@go.olemiss.edu.