BPECDD Newsletter V2011_2

Bridge, Phillips, Elam Drainage District News From the desk of Milton Sandy Jr

April 10, 2011

Vol 2011-2

This newsletter is directed to friends and supporters of our efforts to get something done about the repetitive flooding in Corinth and Alcorn County which on May 2, 2010, caused loss of life, public and private property and threatened public health and safety by the massive release of raw sewage into flood waters. If you have news, questions or comments, please fire away.

Local Drainage History Back last fall, we had a great field day with the Corinth High School Science Club who began a water quality monitoring program for Bridge, Phillips and Phillips Canals participating in the Adopt-A-Stream project with Ms. Amy Burks, their adviser.

Flood Threat for April Monthly, this club monitors temperature, PH, turbidity and dissolved oxygen at test sites on Bridge, Elam and Phillip Creek Canals. One of the enthusiastic young students we met that day was a lovely young woman, Ms. Allie Winters. Recently we have seen her in the local news several times.

In March, she was named a Scholar Finalist for the Coca-Cola Foundation in Atlanta, Ga., competing with 252 other high school seniors for college scholarships.

What Ms. Winters probably does not know and I did not know at the time is that she has a much closer connection to these canals than she might imagine. Her great-great grandfather came to Mississippi with the dredging company that built most of the canals in Alcorn County, married a local girl and settled down to raise a family.

Allie K. Winters

Once again, I have to credit the historical research of Stephanie Sandy for the story below. Inspired by this short newspaper clip from her data files, she began the search for Edgar Winters. It's not often that you find the name of a working man in a news account 97-years after the fact. The McGinnis Construction Company worked in many locations in several states and their employees were frequently relocated. Turns out this job lasted over 10 years and involved 119 miles of canals in Alcorn County.

The Weekly Corinthian, Thurs., May 29, 1913,- "Quiet Wedding Yesterday – McCord's Studio was the scene of a quiet, though impressive wedding ceremony at 4 o'clock, when Rev. C. A. Northing, in his happy, pleasant manner said the solemn words uniting the lives of Edgar Winters and Miss Leo Jobe. Mr. Winters is originally from Knoxville, Tenn., but has been in Alcorn county several months employed by the McGinnis Construction Co., cutting the Tuscumbia Drainage Canal. His bride is a charming young lady of the Salem community, being a step-daughter of Mansel Anderson. They will leave Corinth for Falkner in Tippah county, where Mr. Winters is engaged in the construction of a dredge boat ...." p. 1, c. 4, from Saturday's Daily.

Contact: Milton Sandy Jr 662-286-6087 - Fax 287-4187 - E-mail mlsandy@tsixroads.com

Surprisingly, Edgar J. Winters (b. 1890 in Elk Park, NC), generally called “Dutch”, became a resident of Alcorn County the remainder of his life. Edgar Winters married a young woman, Leo V. Jobe (1892-1994), connected to a well respected family; her step-father was Mansel Kendrick Anderson of the Salem Community. Leo was the daughter of Bedford F. Jobe (1866-ca. 1896) and Geneva Phillips (1877- 1964).

“Dutch” and Leo Winters had five children; Hubert, Troy, Louise, Bedford E. and Bill Winters. Troy Winters' wife, Ora (Rencher) Winters, and his brother Bill Winters thoughtfully provided the photographs for this short biographical sketch.

On the 2 June 1917 Mississippi World War I Draft Registration Cards, Edgar J. Winters, Dutch Winters appeared before the County Clerk of Randolph County, Arkansas, to provide particulars. The clerk wrote that his left eye and ear were damaged by dynamite explosion. Mrs. Ora Winters said that another employee was playing a joke that went haywire and “Dutch” was caught in the explosion.

Dutch & Leo Winters

This story brought back memories regarding how common dynamite was procured by anyone at that earlier time. Now you can't even get decent 4th of July fireworks and Cherry Bombs are a thing of the past.

At one time, Biggers Hardware on Cruise Street did a brisk business selling dynamite. Fortunately, Biggers stored the bulk of their dynamite inventory in an isolated sturdy structure on top of the hill behind where the Alcorn County Co-op is located today (211 Hwy. 72) away from their

downtown store..

Dutch Winters not only worked on the Tuscumbia River Canal and probably most of the canals in Alcorn County, but also worked on sewage and drainage construction along the streets in Corinth. This is a early photograph in the family collection of some of his street work.

Throughout his life, “Dutch” Winters loved to dig and retained his skills with the machinery used for ditching. He kept his county property well drained by adding and cleaning-out drainage ditches. At the age of 79, his last activity was working on a ditch in Michie, Tennessee. His wife, Leo (Jobe) Winters, died at the age of 101 in 1994, both are buried in the Forrest Memorial Cemetery south of Corinth.

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They left many descendants here in Alcorn County. Ms. Allie Winters (a great-granddaughter through Bedford Winters' line), is now a dynamic senior at Corinth High School. We hope she can be proud that she is involved in protecting something her great-great grandfather helped create. We wish Allie Winters great success in the final competition of the Coca-Cola Foundation Scholarship on April 14th.

Allie Winters cleaning up Bridge Canal

CORINTH WEATHER 101 I have a couple of corrections to last newsletter's weather data. Mr. Dave Huwe called to my attention that we had left off 1 rainfall date in 2010 >3” when I manually updated the historical database with 2010 data. The rainfall associated with 5/2/2010 which actually fell in the 24 hr period thru 8:00 am was 5.68” and the rainfall associated with 5/3/2010 which actually fell thru 8:00 am on Monday was 5.05” The two days rainfall could have theoretically fallen within a single 24 hr period which would have made the probability of that being a rainfall event of much greater rarity.

With these corrections, the frequency chart of “Big Rains” was updated as shown below and the ranking of the May 2, 2010, event moved up to Number 9 on the chart of past events. Since we do not have a weather station recording the intensity or velocity of rainfall events, Mr. Huwe's observation is impossible to prove or disprove. The closest weather station which records rainfall on an hourly basis is at Tupelo. While Tupelo weather closely parallels our own on many occasions, it also can be quite different as anyone who has left Tupelo when it was pouring down rain only to arrive in Corinth when it hadn't rained a drop can tell you.

Mr. Wade Burcham of Thompson Engineering suggested an interesting website that I had not run across to try and shed some light on this question. www.weatherspark.com charts weather statistics in an interactive manner that is quite interesting for spotting trends and illustrating the weather over periods of time. They have about the last 20 years of data online. The only problem is that they show Corinth, MS but really are using the data from Tupelo, MS. In any case, their chart for Corinth for Saturday May 1 and Sunday May 2, 2010, the #9 all time record rainfall event is below:

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In the chart above, the first section below the heading labeled SUN shows from left to right, the daylight period corresponding to the 24 hours in a day. The second section of the chart labeled PRECIPITATION shows with colored bands the velocity of rainfall on an hourly basis over 24 hours. The light green shows light rainfall, med green medium rainfall, dark green heavy rainfall and orange shows thunderstorm conditions. There was no dark green band on either day.

For comparison, I looked at the rainfall data from the same site for the #4 rainfall event in Corinth on May 25th and 26th, 1991. As you can see the intensity of the rainfall was almost continuous starting around 4 pm on Saturday May 25 th and never stopping until Monday morning.

The period of heaviest flooding corresponded to the dark green, heavy rainfall band on Sunday afternoon.

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Below is the revised all time weather event listing and a revised flood hazard frequency chart:

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Coming up This past week I spent most of my time in New Albany attending a Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) flood plain management training course that was recommended to me by Dave Huwe. I will have to admit that it was one of the best managed and planned events of its type that I have ever participated in. The MEMA staff covered an awful lot of information while still making it interesting, very personalized and very open for questions and input from the participants.

MEMA has available a voluntary program for National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) communities in the state of Mississippi called Community Rating System (CRS). At present, 23 communities in Mississippi are enrolled - Tupelo being the only one presently in Northeast Mississippi. I believe I recall they have documented $1.9 million in savings thus far to flood policy holders. Basically, it is a flood risk rating system very similar to the community fire rating system.

The public and businesses benefit by reduction of flooding risk by lower flood insurance premiums.

I would like to see Corinth participate sooner rather than later in this program.

New Albany has changed quite a bit since the last time I spent any time visiting there almost 50 years ago. The city and Union County are benefiting right now from proximity to the new Toyota plant at Blue Springs but I was impressed with the nearby Tallahatchie River less than 2 blocks from downtown. A small park, maintenance path and walking/nature trail makes it a real environmental and recreational asset to the city.

Tallahatchie River – 2 blocks from downtown New Albany During the MEMA conference, I was privileged to meet Mr. Hubert Foley who is the Union County Engineer as well as a drainage commissioner for the Historic Tallahatchie Drainage District (ca 1914). Mr. Foley informed me that the park along the river there was created around 30 years ago.

On Friday, I met with Mr. Dennis Abernathy from the USACOE in Memphis in Corinth to discuss some of the grant requests we are now working on. I will try to bring everyone up to date in our next newsletter.

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