A flyer that circulated online and in Vicksburg Facebook groups over the weekend advertised a community meeting for residents impacted by the Yazoo Backwater Floods.

The meeting will take place on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in Rolling Fork at the South Delta High School Auditorium, 303 Parkway Ave., with state legislators expected to attend.

“I have used every opportunity available to me to invite federal officials to the Mississippi Delta to see and hear firsthand the damage and pain that residents have experienced as a result of decades of repeated flooding,” U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker said in a statement. “The federal government promised the people of the South Delta a flood control solution nearly 80 years ago, and it is past time that this promise be kept. I am hoping that this visit will shed light on the plight of Delta residents and be a step toward completing long-awaited flood relief.”

Wicker, R-Miss., and U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson have invited Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory to Mississippi for a series of briefings on flood control needs in the Mississippi Delta with a delegation of federal officials. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith will also reportedly participate.

The first stop in Vicksburg at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers headquarters will provide stakeholders from the federal government an opportunity to hear from local elected representatives and brief legislators.

The second visit in Rolling Fork at the South Delta High School will provide federal stakeholders a listening session to hear from members of the public about their experiences with repeated flooding in the Mississippi Delta.

The Yazoo Pumps Project was rejected on Nov. 17, 2021, following a request by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) for an Environmental Protection Agency probe into the January 2021 approval of the project near the end of the Trump Administration.

Catastrophic floods have plagued the Yazoo Backwater area and South Delta as a whole for more than 80 years, most recently with the 2019 Backwater Flood that damaged hundreds of homes and thousands of acres of farmland.