Bridge, Phillips, Elam Drainage District News From the desk of Milton Sandy Jr
December 12, 2012
Vol 2012-9
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.
K-MART & Local Retail History As the K-Mart store was being built in Corinth in 1992, what we were witnessing was a revolution in retail history being played out both here and in other small towns around the United States where Kmart was trying to fight back against the expanding retail giant Wal-Mart.
Flood Threat for December
5/10/1992 K-Mart/Bruno's shopping center under construction from Hwy 72 looking East Incidentally, I think we are witnessing another revolution at this very moment as big-box retailers are at war with internet retailers and consumers equipped with smart phones and tablets and Fed-Ex and UPS standing by to rapidly deliver packages from anywhere in the world, including China. My recollection is that retail really started changing in Corinth starting in the late 1950's. During my lifetime, small retail specialty stores were the norm, clustered closely in the downtown shopping area. The 5 & 10 cent stores including Kuhn's, Leader, and Sterling, were the dominant small merchandise destinations. Rubel's with their elevator was THE department store
Kuhn's 5 &10 on Waldron now Wendel Trapp's office
Contact: Milton Sandy Jr 662-286-6087 - Fax 287-4187 - E-mail mlsandy@tsixroads.com
destination in Corinth. Downtown there were men's and ladies apparel, appliance, furniture, grocery, hardware, and an assortment of drug stores. My own personal experience with retailing in Corinth started in one of these drug stores. Maury and Ann Whitfield gave me my first real job when I was 11 years old at Whitfield Pharmacy running the photography department at their drug store at 512 Cruise St next door to Rubel's Department Store. Shortly thereafter, they moved to 516 Fillmore across from the old Post Office which was then the highest traffic count retail location in Corinth. I continued working part time for the next 10 years during school breaks and through the 1960's Whitfield Pharmacy Fillmore St across from Post Office summer. Before simplified film cartridges were developed, I spent many an hour before Christmas loading film in cameras for customers who would bring their camera to the store, purchase film, have me load it into their camera on the spot and then bring the camera back after Christmas. I would unload the film and send it off to be developed. About as labor intensive, if you think about it, as filling up at gas stations, mostly downtown, at that time. Kuhn's 5 & 10 expanded downtown when the Waldron Street Hotel was torn down into Corinth's first Kuhn's Big K discount store (no relation to Kmart). Later Big K opened an even bigger store where the flea market across from the Rib Shack Restaurant is today. In 1966, another chain which started in 1958 in Abilene, Texas, came to Corinth and was the first major store to locate outside the downtown area on Hwy 72 directly across from present day Russell's Steak House - Gibson Discount Center. A high school classmate's father, Willie Martin Green, managed the local Gibson store. Gibson's was a franchise
Gibson Discount Center on Hwy 72 Page 2/13
operation and never had the capital to match Sam Walton's purchasing power. Reportedly, Sam Walton studied many early discounters and modeled parts of his earliest stores' operations on Gibsons. Facing increasing competition from Wal-Mart, Gibson's moved to a new store and added a pharmacy in 1974 on Hwy 72 next to Kentucky Fried Chicken. The store closed after the parent company filed for bankruptcy in the mid 1980's.
Christmas 1967 Gibson employee photo in front of Hwy 72 store across from Russell's Sam Walton opened his first Wal-Mart Discount city in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962. By the end of the 1960's Wal-Mart had 18 stores, all West of the Mississippi river within 200 miles of his home base in northwest Arkansas. My high school classmate, David Green, now a local construction contractor with his partner Dwight Wilson, spent 7 years in management with the Nashville based Kuhn's Brothers Company, Inc. during the era of expansion of the Big-K discount stores. David recalls that the owner of Kuhn's was reported to be friends with Sam Walton with whom he had an informal understanding that Kuhn's wouldn't open stores West of the Mississippi River and Sam Walton wouldn't open East of the Mississippi. When the Kuhn's owner turned over the company to his two sons, they soon opened a store in Missouri upsetting the apple cart with dire results. By 1981, Wal-Mart purchased the remains of Kuhn's operations for 20 cents on the dollar. In 1970 Sam Walton took Wal-Mart public and began an expansion which resulted in its position today as not only the largest retailer in the world, but also the largest corporation in the world. Wal-Mart's first store in Mississippi, east of the Mississippi River, was located in Corinth in 1972 when the present day Southgate Shopping Center on Cass Street was completed.
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My friend Bill Caruth remembers meeting Sam Walton one day at that store. Walton apparently hitched a ride on the delivery truck from Arkansas to the local store and walked around quizzing employees in his friendly but pointed manner, digging deeper if he sensed there was a problem, while the truck was unloaded. Walton is credited with “management by walking around� long before business management authors picked up the phrase. Bill, never the bashful type, recalls suggesting to Sam Walton that Wal-Mart did not stock enough extra-large sizes in men's clothing, a fact reinforced because he observed they were always low or completely out of stock. Sam Walton agreed with him. Later I recall Wal-Mart did seem to have more Big & Tall sizes in stock. My own Wal-Mart recollection at that time, along the same line, is that they had a very good selection of products but would often sell out of popular items and it would sometimes be months before they were back in stock. Sam Walton's relentless pursuit of competitive intelligence, trying to learn from the good and bad things about his own operations and other chains across the country led to later investments in the most advanced computerized inventory control systems that soon were ranked the best in the industry. Today you seldom find merchandise out of stock at Wal-Mart, even for a little while. Wal-Mart sales went from $44 million in 1970 to $1.25 billion in 1979. Wal-Mart became the fastest company in history to reach the $1 billion annual sales mark. Wal-Mart also came under criticism for its impact on small retail businesses. Independent store owners often went out of business when Wal-Mart came to town, unable to compete with the superstore's economies of scale. Iowa State University economist Kenneth Stone conducted a study on this phenomenon and told the New York Times Magazine (April 2, 1989): "If you go into towns ... where Wal-Mart has been for 8 or 10 years, the downtowns are just ghost towns." He found that businesses suffering most were drug, hardware, five-and-dime, sporting goods, clothing, and fabric stores, while major appliance and furniture businesses picked up, as did restaurants and gasoline stations, because of increased traffic. In Corinth in the early 1980's a Corinth Historical Commission was started in response to concerns about the declining state of downtown. In 1990, Mayor E.S.Bishop in an effort to facilitate a search for grants to revitalize a stagnant economy reorganized the Corinth Historical Commission under the leadership of Stephanie Sandy. The name was changed to the Corinth Historic Preservation Commission which is still active today and has overseen what has evolved into a well preserved downtown which is being promoted with a focus on the city's rich history. Kmart Corporation grew from a Detroit national chain-store operation of five-and-dime stores opened in 1899 by S.S. Kresge Company. Kresge successfully weathered the Great Depression of the 1930-1940's while battling mail order giant Sears, Roebuck. In 1962 the company opened its first discount store in the Detroit suburb of Garden city, calling it Kmart. Kmarts were not placed in shopping centers but were built in plazas by themselves, to avoid nearby competition and also to provide ample parking. The Kmart stores were an instant success; by 1963, there were 63 facilities. Three years later, the number of Kmarts had swelled to 122. For
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a short time in the late 1960's, Kmart appeared to be the new dominant discount retailer. New ventures in 1988 included a partnership by Kmart with Bruno's Inc., a food retailer. Kmart stores originally were built only in major cities with populations greater than 50,000 people. From Wal-Mart's inception, Sam Walton had decided that small town populations would welcome, and make profitable, large discount shopping stores and had built his stores starting in small towns, avoiding major cities, building on his concept of saturating markets within a 200 mile radius of a distribution warehouse. In 1990 Wal-Mart became the number one retailer in the United States, passing both Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Kmart. Locally, Big-K and Gibsons had bitten the dust. By 1992, Kmart was fighting for its life trying to expand and shift gears to build stores in smaller towns in direct competition with Wal-Mart. This was the retail battleground that brought K-Mart and Bruno's to Corinth in 1992.
K-MART LAWSUIT and “STUFF� in the Floodways
1961 Aerial photo of Fairgrounds and area along Elam Creek-behind K-Mart A-Alcorn Jail future site, B- CTA building, C- Turner Creek, D- GM&O RR, E- Elam Canal, F- Southern RR, G- First Baptist Church Page 5/13
To begin a report about “STUFF” that has been located in the floodways, it is first necessary to try and look back, remember the ways things were, and establish a starting point. I never realized as you get older how quickly you forget. These days we are bombarded with an incredible amount of new information on a daily basis and I think we gain a little and forget a lot. The body of knowledge and skill sets of preschoolers now just boggles my mind compared to what I can remember of my preschool and grade school days. Last year I attended a training course on the National Flood Insurance Program(NFIP) put on by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), the state agency arm of FEMA. For a week long course, it was very informative, well prepared, and interesting for the most part. One of the things I vividly remember that the administrators pointed out was that they found local communities' governing bodies that were charged with enforcement of floodplain regulations were often the worst offenders at violating regulations themselves. After I came back to Corinth and looked around, I knew exactly what they were talking about. The above aerial picture from the Corinth High School 1961 annual shows the area immediately behind the present day Kmart/Kroger shopping center. The most prominent feature missing is Fulton Drive Extended which was built in the late 1960s and lies almost entirely in the floodway and floodplain from Hwy 72 to Shiloh Road. Fulton Drive is considerably elevated and forms a levee which has a major impact on the flow of floodwaters. Fulton Drive cuts through the old fairgrounds area between the Corinth Theater Arts building and the old baseball stadium. The very same thing took place at a later date along Phillips Creek where Harper Road was extended almost entirely in the floodway and floodplain and creates a major levee in the Melody Park area. Once again I believe Kmart's expert witness report from EFI Global (Case: 1:11-cv-00103GHD-DAS Doc #: 77-1 Filed: 10/17/12 Page #: 400) does a great job of explaining the effect of fill and “stuff” in floodways: “Simply put, floodwaters must have an open, unobstructed flowing pathway along a creek. If earth fill or buildings or other structures are built in the flow pathway floodwaters rise and move faster and cause greater damage. When FEMA prepares their maps, they calculate what a reasonable flow pathway should be and show it as the "Floodway" on their maps. It is the responsibility of the cities and counties that issue building permits to enforce the restriction and make sure that the floodway is not blocked. The difference between the areas on the FEMA maps called the "Floodway" and the areas called the "Floodplain" is that nothing can be built in the "Floodway", while careful construction is allowed in the "Floodplain" areas. The Kmart store is built entirely in the "Floodplain." Approximately one half of the Kroger store is built in the "Floodway", obstructing the flow of floodwater down the creek. The construction of the Kroger and other structures in the known floodway of Elam creek clearly increases the flood heights and potential for flooding, as well as for increased velocities, both of the factors involved in the
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flooding of the Kmart store. It is not known what regulatory review was in place at the time the Kroger and other buildings were constructed in the floodway, but as the above quote from the Flood Insurance Study states, it is the responsibility of the local governing authority to control and prevent construction in the floodway.”
The city of Corinth received the results of the initial floodplain study by the Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army (USACE) in February 1972. The initial FEMA insurance study based on that same information was received in September 1980. The first FEMA Flood boundary and floodway maps were effective March 16, 1981. None of the maps showed Fulton Drive Extended or Harper Road Extended so they were not considered in the delineation of the floodways or floodplain then nor were the floodways or floodplains changed in the map revisions of 2010. This means the maps have been and continue to be significantly flawed since their inception in 1981. The expert's report continues with the following remark which I consider somewhat of a cheap shot against the city of Corinth and Alcorn County: “According to the August 30, 2010 volume of the "Federal Register", Corinth, Mississippi, and Alcorn County, Mississippi were among the jurisdictions subject to suspension of community eligibility under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for non-compliance with the floodplain management requirements of the program.”
While there may be plenty of things to legitimately criticize, this is not one of them. The map contractor for FEMA was revising the flood plain maps for Corinth and Alcorn County at the time of the May 2, 2010 flood. The maps were finalized shortly thereafter. Every jurisdiction has 6 months after FEMA's final adoption to adopt revisions to their local ordinances and incorporate the latest maps by reference. The notice in the Federal Register was no sign of any negligence or anything directly or indirectly contributing to any of the flooding problems of May 2, 2010, on the part of the city or the county. The notice was only part of the final 30 days statutory warning of being “subject to suspension” if the required revisions weren't adopted. I verified directly with FEMA that the city of Corinth was never suspended for non-compliance from this notice. On a much broader scale, FEMA gave the whole state of Mississippi warning last year of being “subject to suspension” if state law wasn't modified to remove an exemption from flood plain regulations of deer and hunting camps. The state legislature fortunately complied and modified the state law.
What is some of the other stuff that has been put in the floodway since the early 1970's?
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The Alcorn County Jail was built in 1975 located in the area shown by the oval in the old fairgrounds photo. The parking lot in the floodway was raised by fill after the 2001 floods which I believe contributed to the higher flooding levels inside the jail in 2010. A trailer, storage buildings, and a host of confiscated vehicles hidden by a chain link fence were all located in the floodway surrounding the jail. In a previous newsletter, V2011-4, I identified 3 areas of extensive clay pits located in floodplain/floodway areas between Elam and Turner Creeks within the city of Corinth upstream from Kmart/Kroger shopping center which have been filled. The largest area is the location of the present day city barn which was used as a garbage dump until the area was filled. The second area off Linden Street was first filled with garbage and continues in use today as a MDEQ Class II rubbish (vegetation only) site. This was a site that once was considered a prime bass fishing lake that today is a mountain of rubbish. The third area of original clay pits across from Long Wholesale, beside Elam Canal, and behind the old Corinth Machinery Building, were used by Refuse Systems, Inc. (RSI) as a private landfill until the early 1970's when the company was merged with Waste Management. I was told that the landfill contained non-hazardous industrial waste, primarily material from Kimberly Clark which today is reclaimed and recycled in their manufacturing processes. Since the 1970's, I believe these 3 very large areas of clay pits which from the late 1800's until the early 1970's were holes in the ground which retained water and reduced flooding downstream in the Kroger/Kmart shopping center area. All were located in the middle of the fork in the watershed of Elam Canal and Turner Creek in floodplain/floodway areas. During massive
rainfall events, they retained water. After being filled in by garbage, covered with dirt, they not only did not retain water, they increased and added to the flow of water down Elam Canal. Within this same area today is yet another Class I rubbish site, located in the floodway/floodplain of Elam Canal and currently permitted by MDEQ as a Class I rubbish site. In another example of a dog chasing its tail, MDEQ will tell you that floodplain regulation is not part of their area of responsibility, FEMA is in charge of that. FEMA will tell you that the city of Corinth signed an agreement and agreed to enforce those regulations under the NFIP. So who is responsible and why are floodway/floodplain areas continuing to be filled? A short distance just upstream on Elam from the Kmart/Kroger shopping center, Corinth Gas and Water built their new offices along Elam Creek with extensive fill to create parking and shop areas almost entirely in the floodway in November, 1988. Due to the excellent images from Google Earth, a widespread restriction that occurs in all the main drainage canals in Corinth is now crystal clear. Because Elam, Phillips and Bridge run North/South and drain 90% of the surface area of the corporate limits of Corinth, it is a necessity to criss-cross the canals with utility lines running East/West which, when located above ground, block the flow of stormwater and increase flooding when significant rainfall events
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happen. You'll notice them if you look closely near most bridges within the city. The utility crossings not near the bridges have been largely hidden from view by the lack of maintenance which allowed the canals to be overgrown with vegetation in the past.
9/18/2012 Google Earth view of utilities blocking drainage on Elam Canal behind old Jail Whether that was by intent or just neglect would be a good question to ask. When problems occur, they are out-of-sight, out-of-mind until, in the case of sewage leaks, they become noticeable by smell. This occurred in the Kmart/Kroger detention pond as reported in Newsletter V2011-9 and we are fortunate that Mayor Irwin has a keen sense of smell.
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Both gas and water are distributed under pressure and most new lines around town in recent years have been buried under the drainage canals which do not create problems if properly installed. Sewer lines, which in most cases are gravity driven, are much harder to bury under or elevate over obstructions. To route sewage under or over a drainage canal requires a pumping station to apply pressure to the flow and this is a continuing potential maintenance problem as well as a flooding vulnerable spot in the smooth flow of sewage to the treatment facility. Sewer lines are almost always found in floodplains because the logical way to route a sewer line is by following the natural flow of water which is downhill. The location of the city sewer plant is quite logical if you think about it. It is located at the lowest elevation above sea level of any place in the city of Corinth and was, until the installation of the pipeline to the Tuscumbia, able to release its treated outflow water directly into Elam at its junction with Bridge Creek and then let it flow west directly into the Tuscumbia- all by gravity. Just north and upstream on Elam from the city of Corinth Gas and Water department are storage buildings and a tanning salon built largely in the floodway. In the late 1990's, housing construction was booming and many building materials, including brick, were in short supply. A local company built a new 9/18/2012 Google Earth view Linden and Fulton brick manufacturing facility just east of Drive storage buildings in Elam floodway Elam Creek near Allen Street. The brick manufacturing plant was supported by the city of Corinth with federal and state grants to finance street and other improvements including an open sided storage shed built in the floodway. Ordinarily an open shed would have minimal impact on the floodway due to the limited footprint of such a building and it's open sides. This building, however, was used to store a mountain of impervious clay which was to become a huge diversion for flood waters in the floodway. The plant was constructed in 1999 and the first bricks manufactured in February 2000. The plant was sold in 2003 to another group of investors. By 2007, the building industry was in a downward spiral from which it hasn't yet recovered and the owners of the brick plant were bankrupt. I'll have to admit I was convinced after the first major flood since 1991 on 10/12/2001, that this was the whole source of the flooding coming around the west side of the compress down Fulton Drive and causing the rushing, forceful flow of water destroying my fences. The mountain of clay which was stored there was immovable by the flow of water and caused a giant Page 10/13
plug along with the building on the opposite side of Elam which restricted, along with the overgrowth of vegetation, the flow of water downstream and contributed to flooding in the area.
9/18/2012 Google Earth view of brick plant area on Elam East of Kroger
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Allen Lee recalls the scare he received during that flood when the rising water reached the brick kiln on the opposite side of Cox St where water had never reached before. A frightening cloud of steam started coming from the kiln and he thinks shutting down the kiln may have prevented an explosion at that time.
10/19/2001 Clay stored in floodway next to Elam shortly after flood of 10/12/2001 The brick manufacturing plant property with the clay still stored there had been repossessed by Renasance Bank at the time of the 5/2/2010 flood. Since that time, the property was purchased at auction by Mr. James Daniel with SMC Recyling who promptly cleaned up the property and removed the mountain of clay stored in the floodway. After much thought and after sharing the information presented last newsletter about the drainage from the back of the Kmart/Kroger shopping center roofs, I am no longer so sure about exactly what was and is the impact of the brick plant and clay mountain stored there. It was certainly a major hydrological factor but I don't know, for sure, what. The whole area where the brick plant is located was, until the early 1970's, covered by buildings that were part of the old Federal Compress. Elam flowed downstream from the Allen Street bridge to the abandoned
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railroad crossing underneath contiguous buildings. The buildings, although located in the floodway, were all wood frame and elevated on pilings, so they had minimum impact on any overflow of water in the floodway which might have occurred. You can see the buildings at the bottom right corner of the 1961 aerial photo at the start of this article. So this is a brief summary of just some of the “STUFF� which I believe has been located in the floodplain/floodway areas nearby and directly upstream on Elam Creek that contributed to the flooding of May 2, 2010, in the Kmart/Kroger shopping center. There are similar areas on Phillips Creek and Bridge Creek where development has taken place in the floodway in the last 40 years. Also, while it doesn't directly impact the Kmart/Kroger shopping center, the 2012 construction of a new pawn shop on the site of the former Shoney's is I believe directly in the floodway and its construction is no different than the Kroger building construction in 1992 that is being alleged in the Kmart lawsuit as a cause of the May 2, 2010 flooding. Next issue, I hope to look at the KCS railroad bridge behind the old Walmart shopping center and some of the flooding issues there. Once again to recap, our list thus far includes: 1. Drainage ditches not being maintained 2. Detention pond may have been full, blocked or not functioning properly 3. Drainage from back of Kmart/Kroger may be undersized or inadequate 4. Fulton Drive extended was built in the floodway from Hwy 72 to Shiloh Road with state and federal funding 5. Alcorn Jail was built in the floodway 6. City Gas and Water complex was built in the floodway 7. Clay pits which formerly held water were filled with garbage and refuse and ceased to be water retention areas 8. Sewer and utility lines crisscross and restrict the flow of water on Elam as well as other canals around Corinth 9. Commercial and storage buildings were built directly upstream in the floodway 10. An open storage shed was built on the East side of Elam directly across from Kmart/Kroger shopping center in the floodway and was filled with a 2 story tall mountain of clay with the help of the city, state and federal grants
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