Flood Victims Blame Clogged Culverts, Ditches By Cheryl Lasseter cheryl@wlbt.net Sunday's downpours left quite a mess Monday in Pearl. Vickie Stanford says her home on Trojan Drive was flooded inside due to a drainage problem outside. "You see that water line on the fence?" she says, standing on the roadway near her back yard and pointing to a water line, roughly 8 inches high, on her fence. Vickie blames the drainage ditch that runs along the back of her property. She says the city doesn't maintain it, so it's clogged with rocks and debris, and she says that's why her property got flooded. Residents in the Pine Park neighborhood across town are upset about the flooding too. One homeowner points to a partially completed culvert project. "They come in, and as you can see, they left a mud hole," he says. While talking to WLBT News, a city public works official drives by and chats briefly with the homeowner, but then drives away. "He is the Director of Public Works for the city of Pearl. That's the kind of response we get, he throws his hands up and drives off," the homeowner says. But the Mayor, Jimmy Foster, agrees to come out and look at the problem. "There's the wood fence down there that dams the ditch up and holds most of the water back from going on through," he says. "Then you've got the telephone poles." Foster says the city is trying to get permission to move the homeowner's fence and telephone pole that are blocking the culvert. But the Pine Park neighborhood is in a flood zone, and flooding will occur. "There's not much more we could to maintain it other than enlarging the culvert that we were talking about at the big ditch, to let more water through, and then getting this telephone pole and the fencing out of the way. And we're going to do that, we're trying to get that done." Homeowner Tess Ellis has the flooding damage on tape. Her family is living in a hotel while their belongings dry out. They have flood insurance, but Tess wants the city to act quickly on drainage problems. "Now that it's done flooded our house and we have to live in a hotel for weeks, what do we do? We're the community. They're supposed to be trying to help us, instead of building a dang library," she says. Mayor Foster says the city is listening to the homeowner's complaints, and will fix whatever problems it can.