Linda Powell is back home.

She has moved into a new double-wide mobile home in the Kings community on family property about a block east of the home on Taylor Street that she left on Mother’s Day, ahead of advancing floodwaters from the Mississippi River.

She, her husband, Arthur, and other family members were among the Kings, Cedars School Circle and Warrenton Place residents who fled their homes in early May as the Mississippi rose to record heights in Vicksburg, cresting at 57.1 feet on May 19, 14.1 feet above flood stage and 1.3 foot above the Great Flood of 1927.

“This was the first time we ever had water in our house,” Powell said. “In 2008, the water stopped at the railroad tracks (on the west side). We didn’t have flood insurance.”

After living in a hotel and later in an apartment, Powell, like several other Kings residents, decided to head back home.

According to information from Vicksburg’s Buildings and Inspection Department, the majority of permits for work in the city’s floodplain areas have been issued to residents in Kings.

City records indicate that 13 people have received permits to demolish homes, and five new residential permits have been issued for new mobile homes with elevation certificates.

The city has also issued 12 building permits for home repair or renovation, and four of those applicants have signed memorandums of understanding about repairing a home in a floodplain. A total of eight residents have signed memorandums of understanding.

Buildings and inspection director Victor Gray-Lewis, who has been with the city since 2002, said he had talked with some residents in the Cedars School and Warrenton Place areas on the west side of U.S. 61 South about elevating and demolishing homes.

He said the calls were the first he had ever received about flood damage or elevation from those areas since he has been with the city.

“Either they had no flood damage (in the past), or had very little damage and didn’t call,” he said.

The memorandums allow residents of the floodplain to have utilities restored at their homes so they can make repairs, Gray-Lewis said.

He said it also tells residents that if they move into the house without making changes to meet Federal Emergency Management Agency floodplain regulations, they could lose their rights to future FEMA assistance if they are flooded again.

“Some people in Kings are between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “They can’t afford to elevate their homes and they can’t afford to relocate.”

Kings, like Cedars School and Warrenton Place, is in the city’s 1 percent zone — an area that has a 1 percent chance of flooding in a given year.

FEMA and city floodplain regulations require property owners in that zone to elevate their homes at least 2 feet above the base flood elevation. That means if the base flood elevation is 14 feet, the house must be raised at least two feet so the elevation of its bottom floor is at least 16 feet.

FEMA offers homeowners with flood insurance a $30,000 grant to elevate, demolish or relocate their homes, and there are other grant programs available to help people without flood insurance elevate their homes. People using the other FEMA programs, however, must buy flood insurance as part of the program requirements.

Elevating a house is expensive, Gray-Lewis said. Representatives for several foundation repair and house-moving companies in the Jackson area said it costs about $20,000 to $35,000 to raise a 1,200 to 1,800 square-foot home two feet.

“People will sure use up their grant money,” said Todd Means of Means House Moving Inc. of Brandon. Means said he has talked with several homeowners about elevating homes in Kings, but has not yet elevated any.

And elevating a house is no guarantee that it will not get water the next time an area floods, Gray-Lewis said. Several homes in the Ford subdivision area were elevated between 10 and 14 feet and had as much as 4 feet of water inside during the flood.

The Powells’ new home is located on the site of her grandmother’s home on King’s Crossing Road. The home, Powell said, was severely damaged by the flood and was demolished. Her 92-year-old aunt, Ida M. Murray, whose nearby mobile home also was heavily damaged in the flood, now lives with them, she said.

“FEMA was very generous,” she said. “We received maximum in aid ($32,000), which helped us to get our mobile home.”

She said the mobile home is elevated 6 feet above the base flood elevation. The contractor who demolished her grandmother’s home, she said, built a 3 foot dirt mound for the new home, which was elevated an additional 3 feet on concrete blocks by the company that sold her the mobile home.

“There was never any doubt that I would return home,” Powell said. “I’ve lived here all my life. We made it with the help of family and friends. And I now have flood insurance.”