NATCHEZ, Miss. – City aldermen declared an emergency Tuesday as they scramble to curb bluff erosion that’s imperiling Cemetery Road.
While Natchez has just received emergency federal money to combine with city funds, work must be hastened to fix the problem, said Mayor Dan Gibson.
Cemetery Road is “now in danger,” he said Tuesday, as he warned it could become impassable if the soil erosion is not contained. He pointed to the importance of having the existing access to the two cemeteries and many residences in that area.
Recent rains have caused the scenic bluff overlooking the Mississippi River to quickly wash away to within yards of a section of the road running along the Natchez City Cemetery and Natchez National Cemetery with nearby bluffside residences, the mayor said.
Natchez has been able to quickly get about $1.2 million from U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Servicehelp fund the work needed to keep the bluff from being farther eaten toward the road and nearby properties. Gibson credited Mississippi’s congressional delegation in fast-tracking the grant.
The city will also tap into $300,000 it has in its rainy-day fund to address the bluff erosion. The mayor noted the money is from reimbursements the city has received from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to help pay for responding to previous weather-related disasters.
City officials have been working in recent months on a bluff-stabilization project by Weymouth Hall across the road from the city cemetery. It had an original cost of just $115,000, Gibson said, but the canyon by the bed & breakfast mansion has widened since April at such an alarming rate that it now requires more than $1 million to restrain the erosion.
The Natchez bluffs – with their loess soil – have been erosion-prone for many years. The city in the 1990s embarked on a multimillion-dollar stabilization project to ensure more land did not slide away. About $26 million in federal funds was allocated for measures that included the construction of the concrete-like retaining walls now bracing the bluffs all along Broadway Street and Clifton Avenue.
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