NATCHEZ — The kids of Old Washington Road had their own personal water park in their front yard Friday afternoon.

A heavy deluge that passed through late afternoon resulted in a flash flood that filled drainage ditches and backed up a storm drain in the street.

While kids ran around throwing buckets of water from the street on each other and belly flopped into drainage ditches, Carrie Minor looked on with a furrowed brow.

“This doesn’t make sense,” she said.

Worried about the children’s safety, Minor said this typically happens when it rains heavily.

“When it rains the drains close up and (the water) will not go down,” she said.

She said Friday afternoon the ditches pooled so much water that the kids were quite literally swimming.

“It’s so deep they were swimming like they would in a lake,” she said.

Katrina Jackson pulled home in her truck at the peak of the water’s crest.

“The water was up to the door of my truck,” Jackson said.

She said while this does always happen, “today was the worst one.”

Thomas Llyod, equipment operator for the Natchez Public Works Department, stood in the rain trying to make sense of the water in the streets.

He concluded, and was proven to be true, that the storm drain was clogged with yard debris and trash.

Typically, grates are placed in the storm drains to prevent large amounts of garbage to clog it.

The grate had been pulled up, and the drain needed to be cleared.

Within minutes, the water began to retreat.

As far as the drainage ditches, Public Works Director Eric Smith said there was no problem.

Minor said the drains are the city’s problem and that they are never cleaned up properly.

“The drains are flowing fine,” Smith said. “It was just a flash flood. If it were a city problem the water would still be standing.”