By Dorothy Terry, U.S. News and World Report

Jacqueline “Jackie” Jones wasn’t looking for a second career when the Tennessee native settled in tiny Reidsville, Georgia, after retiring from crunching numbers for the IRS.

But she quickly found herself thrust into the position of environmental activist when the role practically washed up on her doorstep – or rather, up to her windowsills – with flooding that inundated her property.

Reidsville, a rural community with a population of about 2,500, lies about 66 miles west of Savannah and 200 miles southeast of Atlanta. Most of the residents are people of color, with Black Americans making up the largest group, at about 46%.

Attracted by what she has described as the small town’s “cemetery-like” quiet, Jones, 60, bought a house and moved there in March 2018. However, her sought-after peaceful retirement soon dissolved into an environmental nightmare. 

Hell or High Water

In December that year, Jones’ backyard flooded after a rainstorm, leaving water pooled on her property for months. The pattern would repeat, even after the briefest of storms. Eventually it got worse, with floodwaters at one point lapping at her windowsills. And another issue was developing: mold.

Determined to get to the root of the problem, Jones headed off to City Hall – alone. “Residents seemed fearful to comment or to share their stories,” she recalls. 

Whatever the reason for their hesitation, Jones herself didn’t meet with much success. She felt ignored by the city, saying her emails received form responses and city officials either wouldn’t engage with her or made promises that were not kept.

Undaunted, Jones formed Reidsville Georgia Community Floods in 2021, threw up a Facebook page and soldiered on, bypassing the city and taking the issue a few steps further. She reached out to Tattnall County officials, Georgia emergency management officials and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Despite Jones’ initial doubts, A2 has proved pivotal in pulling together a coalition of government, nonprofit and private entities to connect Reidsville and its residents to financial resources, technical assistance and self-empowerment to help alleviate their floodwater woes.

Having identified the problem, the Reidsville-Collins report from Sherwood recommends that hydraulic planners mimic natural drainage patterns to get the water out of town. The A2 team applied for and received additional grant funding of $285,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s National Coastal Resilience Fund to conduct a regional study of drainage patterns and develop just such a restorative landscape plan.

The  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in collaboration with the interagency Georgia Silver Jackets flood mitigation team, is also providing $150,000 in pro bono work to produce flood inundation data for Tattnall County and the city of Reidsville. And scientists from North Carolina State University have partnered with A2 and the Thriving Earth Exchange – a technical service for environmentally stressed communities – to use satellite imagery to validate community members’ lived experiences of flooding.

With resources now pouring into Reidsville, Jones has had the opportunity to reflect upon and share her experience with flooding. Often wearing one of her signature hats – because “a hat makes whatever you’re wearing look good” – she regularly comes to community meetings, and has gotten political. She publicly endorsed Vickie Nail for Reidsville mayor, a candidate whom she viewed as more empathetic to the plight of city residents. Nail won on Nov. 7.

And through A2, Jackie is forming friendships with fellow flood activists, like Susan Liley, founder of Citizens’ Committee for Flood Relief in De Soto, Missouri. Jones drove more than 700 miles (with a stop to visit family in Tennessee) to support Liley’s group in celebrating the opening of a retention pond and park to relieve that town’s own flooding woes and improve its quality of life. She’s planning more trips to visit similar groups.

Reidsville is still vulnerable to flooding  – though there’s been a lot of planning, no actual work has been done yet to alleviate it. “But compared to 2018,” Jones says, “a tremendous number of things have taken place.”

“I no longer cry myself to sleep at night out of frustration and loneliness, feeling like nobody was listening to me or taking me seriously,” she says. “Through my work and volunteerism, my voice is finally being heard.”

As for that peaceful retirement, it seems to have taken a back seat for now. 

This piece was published as part of a collaboration between the Island Press Urban Resilience Project, which is supported by The Kresge Foundation and The JPB Foundation, and the Anthropocene Alliance, which also has partnered with the foundations. Dorothy Terry is a journalist/writer with the Anthropocene Alliance.