DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. — Years of work, and months of a long detour, are about to end on Holly Springs road in DeSoto county.
Flooding had gotten so bad at times the road would sometimes wash out for months, but that problem should now be a thing of the past.
FOX13′s reporter Tom Dees has been reporting on problems with flooding on Holly Springs Road for a decade now.
But as FOX13 found out starting Nov. 22, drivers should have a smoother ride.
The new 2.6-mile stretch of Holly Springs Road is 10 feet higher, and out of the 100-year flood plain.
The old road was prone to floods and had to be shut down as many as two dozen times between 2019 - 2021.
Over the years, FOX13 has seen water running over the road like rapids.
School buses and people who live in the area would have to drive an extra 21 miles out of the way when the road was shut down.
“The ceremony happened and a lot of people have been talking about going around and spending more money and gas, and traffic,” Ayaz Shaukat, of DeSoto County said.
DeSoto County began a $33 million project with federal, state, and local funds three years ago.
The road has been straightened out, and five elevated bridges were added to raise it above the Coldwater River, which drains a large portion of North Mississippi and used to easily flood the road after heavy rain.
”That was pretty rough, too, we would come through and have morning thinking that we were going to make it and would have to cut back to 305 and go 20 or 30 minutes out of the way,” Johnathan Farrow, of DeSoto County said.
The road has been shut down for four months as the bridges and stretches connecting them were completed.
Officials cut the ribbon on the project Monday morning, but the contractor was finishing up work on guardrails before the road can reopen to traffic.
”I am really glad because it seems a long way to go back through coldwater to go to Hernando,” Anita Hudson, of DeSoto County, said.
Holly Springs Road reopens on Nov. 22 at 10 a.m., but the county said there will be some intermittent lane closures for a few days as crews finish a few last items.
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