Mississippi Legislature begins the task of estimating the financial impact of the 2019 flood events

The Mississippi Legislature is working through what Mississippi River flood and the Great Backwater Flood of 2019 is costing the state in lost revenue. From unplanted farm fields to the destruction of Gulf Coast shrimp and oyster beds to lost tourism because of the state’s closed beaches, the impact is bound to be tremendous.

Wednesday, the state Senate held hearings in two committees, tourism and agriculture, to begin assessing the financial impact of the floods.

“I don’t know if we know the complete impact yet,” Chris McDonald, with the Mississippi Department of Agriculture, told WAPT.

With 500,000 acres of Mississippi’s most fertile fields unplanted this year, those losses may be the largest piece of financial picture.

“It’s going to be in the billions,” McDonald said.

Tuesday, Mississippi Emergency Management Agency officials submitted a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for federal aid.

MEMA Director Greg Michel estimated that between individual and public assistance, the figure could be around $100 million.

Also on everyone’s mind are the unfinished backwater pumps that allowed the floodwaters to do so much damage in the South Delta. “The pumps would have made a difference in getting some of that water out,” said Drew Smith of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Even if action is taken today to nullify or reverse the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2008 veto of the pumps, the expectation is that they will not be completed for another four years.