Saturday rain was “critical” to farmers

Despite multiple tornado warnings and flash flood warnings, it appears Grady County escaped Saturday’s downpour with minor damage and the rain actually brought major benefit to farmers.
Georgia Extension Service Agent Don Clark said the more than 4″ of rain that fell here Saturday was vital.
“Our farmers will be planting corn in about 10 days and this was a critical rain,” Clark said Tuesday.
The senior ag agent said the county received more rain at one time than has fallen here in over two years.
“This was a good rain for us. It did a lot to replenish the subsoil moisture and fill lots of irrigation ponds throughout the county. I’ve seen water standing where there hasn’t been water standing in over two years,” Clark said.
The rain did bring down a few trees around the county, but road and emergency crews were able to remove them without incident.
Some motorists did find the rain-soaked roadways difficult to traverse and vehicle accidents kept emergency responders busy Saturday and into Sunday morning. One hydroplaned vehicle on Mizpah Road crashed into a utility pole that Grady EMC crews had to replace. Luckily, power remained uninterrupted, according to EMC and city of Cairo utility spokesmen.  
There was only slight flooding in flood-prone areas of downtown Cairo on First and Second Avenue N.E., but Cairo City Manager Chris Addleton says the new detention pond or “dry pond” constructed at Davis Park worked “marvelously” during the Saturday rain event. According to the city manager, the flooding of streets was caused by clogged storm drains that city crews have since cleaned out and no water went into buildings.
“I was extremely pleased with how the pond performed. It appears that all of our storm drainage projects performed as designed all the way downstream,” Addleton said.