Storms cause dam break in Pearl River County

By Staff
from staff and wire reports
April 26, 2004
PICAYUNE About 10 inches of rain fell in Pearl River County on Sunday, collapsing a small dam and flooding homes.
The break in a 10-acre lake flooded two nearby homes, but other homes in the county flooded because of the heavy rain.
The dam that failed is near Anchor Lake Subdivision in Pearl River County, west of Interstate 59 and in between Picayune and Poplarville.
The rains also caused street flooding throughout the county, and several roads and three bridges were under water. Officials at Civil Defense said the water should recede by today.
We've got streets flooded and some people have water in their homes that has nothing to do with the dam,'' said Dee Lumpkin with Civil Defense.
In Meridian and East Mississippi, a steady rain fell much of Sunday the first significant rain in several weeks. None of the rain, however, caused flooding in the area.
The National Weather Service in Jackson reported 1.36 inches of rain fell on Meridian this weekend. Meanwhile, other nearby communities received more than 2 inches, including Chunky, which recorded 2.89 inches, and Collinsville with 2.11 inches.
For April, Meridian has received 2.70 inches of rain, more than 2 inches below average for the month. "It's been relatively dry," Wilson said.
Much of the bad weather was in South Mississippi and Southeast Louisiana.
In Pearl River County, Lumpkin said that said some residents chose to go to local hotels, while a few went to a shelter at First Baptist Church in Picayune until the rain stopped.
Len Buckland, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in New Orleans, said the most rain fell in two Louisiana parishes and Pearl River County.
Pearl River County and St. Charles Parish and Orleans Parish definitely got the brunt of the storms,'' he said. The storms moved from the southwest to the northeast, and some of the strongest storms are off the Coast.''