MACON, Ga. — Central Georgia saw flooding much of last week. Now, those floodwaters are receding and cleanup is underway at many parks, like at Macon's Ocmulgee Heritage Trail.
Crews from Bibb County's Parks and Beautification were out at the Spring Street entrance cleaning up what the flood left behind. This time last week, much of the entrance was underwater.
"That's the highest we've seen since 2016," said Michael Glisson, director of Macon-Bibb County Parks and Beautification. Flooding crested at just under 26 feet last week.
Dirt, mud, and debris was left behind, so the county brought out a skid-steer loader.
"It will be out here scrapping these mud piles that you see and cleaning out some of these gutters," Glisson said.
This isn't their first time doing cleanup on the trail over the last few weeks.
"It's been off an on for weeks now. It's one of those things that when mother nature gives us a break, we can get out here and kind of clean up. Lo and behold, three or four days later, we get more rain and it floods again," Glisson said.
Now, Glisson says they're in the final stages of cleanup. They're hoping to open the park on Thursday.
However, it's a different story over at Ocmulgee Mounds National Park.
"Lots of sloppy trails. The trails are kind of wet," said Mickey Smith.
Mickey Smith has seen the flood waters slowly go down. Last week, many of the trails were blocked off. On Wednesday, only the Riverwalk was closed off because it's still partially underwater.
"I really don't know how they're going to clean it up, especially down the backside toward the very end. There's a lot of plastic, a lot of plastic bottles, jugs," Smith said.
Carla Beasley, the park's acting superintendent, says cleanup will start once it starts to dry up.
"It's kind of hard to clean up mud, but once the sediment is all dried up, we basically just sweep it off the trail, and everything is good to go," Beasley said.
Even when cleanup starts, Beasley says the park will remain open.
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