Eagle Lake homeowners who plan to rebuild their homes destroyed in the April 24 tornado will have to meet the newly added guidelines of Warren County’s flood ordinance, meaning they must put the houses on stilts up to 18 inches off the ground.

“They told me I can raise my 2,800-square-foot cement slab,” said Ed Barnett, who has traveled from Jackson each day to oversee day laborers take chainsaws to fallen trees on his property at Sea Island and Pecanwood Drive and two other homes at Eagle Lake.

“I’m not going to raise my structure,” Barnett said. “If I can’t build back, they’ll lose my taxes… I’ll put everything up for sale and get out of Vicksburg.”

Parts of the ceiling caved from the EF-4 tornado with winds of 130 to 150 mph, and a chunk of the roof is gone from the house that once was a community center. Barnett, a marine supply store owner in Jackson, converted the building to apartments two years ago.

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His wrecked 32-foot boat was blown about 80 yards from its usual dockside spot.

Warren County adopted tighter regulations after the Federal Emergency Management Agency pressed counties that did not have the National Flood Insurance Program rules on the books. They apply to Special Flood Hazard Areas — high flood-risk zones defined by FEMA as places that would be inundated by a so-called “100-year flood,” or one having a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year.

On countywide maps adopted in 2008, such areas covered all territory around Eagle Lake, low-lying areas along the Mississippi and Big Black rivers and clusters of land near drainage bayous inside and outside Vicksburg’s city limits.

Flood risks in high-risk spots will be remapped by federal and state emergency management agencies by 2012 to define risks where land elevations are undetermined.

New construction in the hazard zones must be raised at least 18 inches above 100-year flood elevations. The same height also applies to the lowest floors on manufactured homes and RVs, which some have planned to move in as temporary replacements for homes left leveled by the tornado.

Proposals for new subdivisions, five acres in size or more than 50 lots in scope, must supply base flood elevation data when seeking county maintenance of new roads.

On Sea Island Drive, the regulations mean restoration costs to an unraised, damaged home need to amount to less than 50 percent of the pre-storm market value to avoid having to raise it, according to the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance’s definition of “substantial damage.”

Article 2 of the ordinance defines the concept as “damage of any origin sustained by a structure” without specifying types of storms, but adds flood damage on two separate occasions in 10 years totaling 25 percent or more of market value as a criterion. Violations of the code are misdemeanors, bringing fines up to $100 and up to 30 days in jail if convicted. Supervisors do have leeway to grant variances as deemed necessary.

Warren County Emergency Management Director Gwen Coleman said the county must enforce the damage clause in order to keep compliant for flood insurance eligibility.

Brian Nosser, whose family’s lake house retreat of 54 years was reduced to a slab, said he thinks fiction is starting to overtake fact on what is allowed.

“We are very confused about the whole situation,” Nosser said, adding his family’s house, most of which was bulldozed away by friends, will be raised when it’s rebuilt.

But then there is the threat of wind wreaking havoc.

“That would be an issue, to some degree. I’d be more concerned with heavy winds than a 100-year flood. It would be gone like the ‘Wizard of Oz,’” Nosser said.

A separate directive by the state Department of Environmental Quality enacted in 2007 will require mobile home owners to obtain a letter of intent from the agency clearing the property of any improper discharge from septic systems before building permits are issued.

Lax enforcement of earlier flood map rules was cited often by county supervisors, none of whom was thrilled to adopt regulations for an area where the absence of zoning and land use rules is part of the attraction. Board approval of the ordinance in March was geared to beat a state-set deadline without public input. Supervisors held a public hearing anyway in April to attract public comment, as is standard practice with local ordinances. No one from the public spoke.

Gwen Coleman, who has supervised the county’s Emergency Management Agency and the Permit Office, acknowledged misunderstandings between past and present concerning the flood plain and environmental regulations. Talks with DEQ over the septic system rules were planned today, Coleman said.

“As it stands, some people are moving in mobile homes and we’ll have to follow guidelines of the health department,” Coleman said.

The long-track, “wedge tornado” began north of Tallulah and killed 10 people in western and central Mississippi and injured 49 others. More than 700 homes were destroyed along its path from Warren to Oktibbeha counties. Six more were killed in violent storms over north Mississippi eight days later.

Approximately 41 people have received housing, unemployment and small business assistance from a disaster recovery center established at Eagle Lake Volunteer Fire Department, according to the center’s coordinators. A debris collection site is open next to Simmons Planting Company’s cotton gin on Mississippi 465 through June 30.