NATCHEZ &045;&045;Officials spent their morning out in the elements after four inches of rain fell on Natchez and Adams County.

The most severe problem was caused when Robin’s Lake flooded and ran over the dam, flooding Robin’s Lake Road, Civil Defense Director George Souderes said.

Residents awoke Thursday morning to find their road flooded from rising water in the 140-acre lake.

&uot;It looked like Niagara Falls,&uot; said Donald Berry, whose home is closest to the road. Around 25 families depend on the road for their access in and out of their neighborhood.

The amount of water in the lake washed away much of the dirt and gravel on the backside of the levee. Debris in the lake’s three drainage culverts caused the problem, Souderes said.

A little over a decade ago, three 2-foot pipes were installed under Robin’s Lake Road to prevent flooding. However, the system failed Thursday after debris in the lake clogged the pipes, forcing water over the road.

By 5:30 p.m. officials had the situation under control and the water level had dropped two feet.

Those working at the scene included Adams County Sheriff Ronnie Brown, Supervisor S.E. &uot;Spanky&uot; Felter, the Kingston Volunteer Fire Department and the American Red Cross

Carol Berry, said she had notified the county that the culverts were stopped up.

&uot;This has been an ongoing situation with the dam,&uot; Berry said. &uot;I’ve been trying to get it fixed and I’ve never seen anyone out here.&uot;

Donald Berry, who helped remove debris from the road with the Adams County road and sheriff’s Departments, said, &uot;we’re at the mercy of somebody to take responsibility for this.&uot;

Souderes said the problems were due to the extreme amount of rain. &uot;We had so much water and so much rain,&uot; he said. &uot;We had rain like we haven’t seen in a long time.&uot;

Adams County was under a flash flood watch from late Wednesday night to early Friday morning in addition to a thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch.

Souderes said the county may ask Soil and Water Conservation to help cover some of the cost of rebuilding the backside of the Robin’s Lake dam, but the damage done across the county was not enough to ask for a state declaration of emergency.

Jim Wiggins, an instructor at Copiah-Lincoln Community College in Natchez, lives on Robins Lake Road with his wife, Judy, also a Co-Lin instructor.

Thursday’s problems at the dam were reminiscent of other times when the couple wondered whether they could reach home at the end of the work day.

&uot;We are upstream from the dam, so we would not be in any danger should the dam break,&uot; Wiggins said mid-afternoon Thursday. &uot;But we have to cross it to get home. The only other way home is a dirt track through the woods that goes through Laurel Hill Plantation.&uot;

Wiggins recalled similar problems with the dam years ago. &uot;They made repairs and put in a little spillway,&uot; he said, referring to the developers who transformed the old Anchorage Plantation into the residential area.

Wiggins recalled the only time he and his wife were unable to get home because of water over the dam.

&uot;We went out to dinner, came back and couldn’t go across the dam. We just got a room at the Eola Hotel,&uot; he said.

Police Chief Mike Mullins said his department responded to a mudslide on Martin Luther King Jr. Street near Robert Lewis Middle School. One lane of traffic was closed due to the mud.

NPD also responded to flooded streets on Shadow and Jefferson Davis Boulevard where two cars had to be pulled from the water.

Public Works Director Richard Burke said his office spent most of the day cleaning out stopped up drains.

&uot;I don’t think there’s a place in the city that didn’t get flooded,&uot; Burke said. &uot;I knew we were going to have trouble when I came to work this morning.&uot;

Burke said a lot of places that normally don’t flood did flood this time due to the amount of rain.

Burke said his department responded to calls on Sparrow Drive, Alice Lane and near the new extension of the Natchez Trace Parkway, as well as all over town.

&uot;In general the whole city flooded, it was just more than drains could handle,&uot; he said.

Officials at the county road manager’s office said they had teams out responding to reports of trees and mud in the road.

Joan Gandy

contributed to this report.