Wayne County gets $1.8 million grant to fix roads with drainage issues

PINE BELT, Miss. (WDAM) - For the residents of Flats Road and Taylor Circle in Wayne County -- when it rains, it floods.

Flats Road resident Robert Ballard Sr. has seen the waters rise there since he was 7 years old.

Ballard said the flooding was so bad, people would wear boots to get out of their cars to get to their homes.

“It would flood out so bad around here, you couldn’t bring your cars in here,” Ballatrd said. “You’d have to leave them up by Highway 45.”

But now, Wayne County Board of Supervisors approved to accept a $1.8 million grant to fix the drainage issue.

Ballard said he was thankful the supervisors got the grant.

“We are happy, and we hope that the grant will be approved more and they help us out,” Ballard said. “And that they continue to strive, so we can live like normal people with no problems as much.”

The grant, funded by both the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the American Rescue Plan Act, will fix culverts and ditches and repave the roadway.

Eighty-nine-year-old James Wesley Chambers, who has lived in the area since 1955, said the project has been a long time coming.

“We had to suffer once, but you suffer for better,” Chambers said. “So, that’s how I feel about it today. I feel like we have suffered away and the Lord done brought us and we are looking forward to just keep going up.”

Wayne County District One Supervisor Hal Hayes spearheaded the project.

“This project has needed to be done for years, and it is a huge project,” Hayes said. “It’s going to take months to do it. We are just grateful for the opportunity that we got to get the money granted to us so soon because it only took five months to get it.

“I’m grateful for that and I’m happy for the people in that area.”

Construction on the project will begin after the bidding and letting process.

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