By SARAH CAMPBELL
Leader staff writer
Jacksonville residents interested in having FEMA buy or raise their flood-ravaged homes need to contact the mayor’s office Monday morning to be included in a packet the city is sending to the federal agency.
Mayor Gary Fletcher said his office will do everything it can for people who are still suffering from the aftermath of May’s storms, but there is no guarantee FEMA will help because the agency has limited resources.
FEMA pays 75 percent of the cost for buyouts that are approved. The other 25 percent has to come from state or local agencies, but the city can’t foot the bill because it doesn’t have enough money to do that, Fletcher said.
The other option is raising the foundation of a house, but that sometimes costs more than homes are worth.
He emphasized that priority is given to worst-case scenarios. The pool of money can only be stretched so far and the number of applicants are already double the amount FEMA can help.
Michelle Dutasaca, a resident of Westwood subdivision off Marshall Road, said the mayor’s office has been very responsive in providing information on what she can do about her home, which also flooded in 2005.
She said her neighborhood has had problems with drainage, but it’s been difficult to get residents to organize into a group so they be heard.
FEMA hasn’t followed up with one of her neighbors and the Red Cross hasn’t helped, Dutasaca said. “This has to move beyond the mayor…it (flooding) hurts the whole neighborhood,” she said.
Fletcher said he hasn’t heard much from other Westwood residents. He said those he has gotten in touch with aren’t interested in a buyout because they don’t want to leave the homes they’ve become accustomed to or they don’t want to lose what they’ve put into the houses.
As for drainage problem, he added, “We work on our ditches constantly. But we’ve only got a limited amount of money each year to set aside for those projects and it never goes far enough.”
The flooding issue is a regional — not a city — problem and the problem starts upstream, Fletcher said. Geographically, the city is a bowl and water from Bayou Meto, especially parts that aren’t in areas incorporated and maintained, backs up in Jacksonville.
Bayou Meto is about 105 miles of running water that moves slowly already because of the winding path it cuts before it empties into the Arkansas River. Beavers build dams in those unincorporated areas that slow the flow down even more.
Jacksonville has a beaver contract to clear out dams in the city. But it can’t afford and doesn’t have the authority to deal with places outside city limits that may be causing back flow.
Fletcher added that the city hired some loggers to clean out the section of Bayou Meto that runs from the Taramount Subdivision to the freeway and that helped with some of the drainage issues the area had.
Flooding encompasses three kinds of water flow, Fletcher continued. Those are rainwater, back flow from Bayou Meto and water from communities north of the city. Some water from Vilonia, for example, ends up on Westwood properties.
Many Jacksonville residents have blamed Waste Management’s Two Pine Landfill for causing the recent floods. But Fletcher said there were floods in Jacksonville before the landfill was built. He said City Engineer Jay Whisker found documentation of flooding in 1968 and 1969 that mirrors the flooding of the past few years.
Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) is organizing a meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers and Jacksonville and Sherwood city officials. But Fletcher said he didn’t know the details yet or whether North Little Rock will also be represented. Griffin said, “I believe the Corps should study this problem, and I will continue to work with the Corps to find a solution for the flooding.”
