Tuesday morning, Pearl River County residents awoke to or drove through torrential downpours that flooded streets.

It was just another rainy day in our area of South Mississippi, one of many that will ultimately increase in occurrence as we move into spring.

What some of us may not have noticed was the fact that while there was some flooding of streets during the heaviest of downpours, that water receded quickly.

Take the intersection of Highway 43 North and Highway 11 for example. During the heaviest of the rain, cars could be seen slowly driving through large amounts of water, kicking up spray as they made their way through the water. But once the water stopped falling from the sky in large volumes, those flooded areas of the streets drained quickly.

The same was true of Acorn Lane near the McDonalds on the north end of Picayune, Main Street near the intersection of Rosa Street and Woodglen Cove. Prior to work being done at those areas, these areas would not only flood, but at one time the water would stand for an extended period of time after the rains stopped.

But through the drainage work conducted by the employees of the city of Picayune’s Public Works Department, those areas no longer hold water. Some people may still comment that the water builds up while heavy rains are occurring. While everyone would agree that if the city could find a way to prevent water from building up on roads in even the heaviest of rains, we also need to consider that in order for that to happen extensive renovation work would be required on the city’s drainage system. Such work does not come cheap.

Ideally, every developed area within this county, state and nation would never be subject to flooding, but we don’t live in an ideal world due to the uncertainty of Mother Nature.

However, the efforts put forth by our city employees to fix once long standing drainage problems have not gone unnoticed.