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Central and northern parts of Mississippi are seeing a continued flood risk Monday, the National Weather Service reported. Meanwhile, state officials’ ongoing assessments have counted 76 homes with damage from Tropical Storm Arthur.
Areas including Greenville, Greenwood, Eupora and Columbus face an elevated risk, including two to three inches of potential flash flooding. Other cities to the south, including Yazoo City and Philadelphia, have a limited risk of flash flooding, which includes one to two inches of rain in a short period.
Arthur inundated south Mississippi late last week. The tropical storm caused one death in Franklin County as of Friday morning, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said. Damages from the flooding and severe weather were also reported in Forrest, Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Lawrence, Pearl River, Rankin, Stone and Walthall counties.
“Our thoughts are with the family (of the deceased) affected by this tragic loss,” said Gov. Tate Reeves, who declared a state of emergency on Friday. “MEMA remains fully engaged with our local emergency management partners to support response operations, assess damages, and ensure resources are available to communities impacted by flooding.”
Seven of the damaged homes were destroyed, and another nine received major damage, Reeves reported Monday. Additional damages included: nine businesses, one farm, 50 roads — including four destroyed — three bridges, two public buildings and three power associations. MEMA reported over 10,000 outages on Thursday, but most were resolved by Friday.
The impacts include “significant flood damage” to a wastewater treatment facility in Harrison County. In addition to flooding, Hancock County saw two confirmed EF-1 tornadoes on Friday, the governor said.
Arthur also threatened to compromise a dam in Pearl River County, emergency officials said, and 30 homes were evacuated as a precautionary measure, emergency officials said Thursday. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality said Friday that the structure was operating as designed. As of a 2023 inspection, the dam was in “poor” condition and has a “high” hazard condition for downstream areas if it were to fail, according to the federal government’s inventory
Erosion from the storm also “undermined a portion of” another dam in Harrison County, but state officials said the hazard and downstream impact were low.
MEMA asked impacted residents to self-report damages through the agency’s online portal.
