Ford Road resident Gerald Maxey watched as James Jordan wiped down a refrigerator that had been saved from the floodwaters.

“It’s still running,” Maxey said as Jordan worked on the appliance as it stood in the center of Eva Street in Ford Subdivision.

Maxey is one of the few residents starting to trickle back to Ford Subdivision and the Kings community as floodwaters recede and they regain access to their homes.

The streets in Ford and Kings and Mississippi 465, the main road to the Eagle Lake community, are among the few roads that have been open in the city and county as the Mississippi River begins returning inside its banks after reaching a 50.5-foot crest at Vicksburg Jan. 16. The river was at 41.79 today. Flood stage is 43 feet.

Some county roads, however, remain underwater, Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said, including Chickasaw Road, the main route to the Kings Point ferry, which remains moored on the Yazoo Diversion Canal off North Washington Street.

“It will get better,” Elfer said. “Once the river reaches 37 feet, everything should be clear.”

And that will mean more longtime residents like Maxey will be coming home.

“They turned on the lights last night, and I stayed in my house,” he said Friday afternoon. “We’re back until the next big flood.”

Maxey was fortunate. His home was elevated and did not take water.

“I was smarter this time,” he said. “Last time (2011) I waited until the last minute. This time I got out early and moved all my stuff into storage.”

His friend Claude Blue on Williams Street, was not so lucky. Blue’s house sits on a concrete slab and he was unable to elevate it after the last flood. He had water up to the ceiling.

“I wish I could get some help with this,” he said.

“That’s one thing we need,” Maxey said. “Help. Last time people brought us cleaning supplies, they brought a big cooler full of cleaning supplies. Nobody’s done anything this time.”

On Brown Alley, W.L. Burks was helping his nephew, Robert Burks, move back into his home, which was elevated about 10 feet off the ground.

Burks said floodwaters reached about 3 feet in his yard.

“I didn’t get any water,” he said. “I was gone for three weeks staying with relatives. It’s great to be back home.”

Someone else who escaped flood damage was Felix Young Jr. on Railroad Avenue.

“The water got as far as those ladders,” he said, pointing to a pair of stepladders about 10 feet from the rear of his trailer. Unlike some Kings residents on the west side of the Kansas City Southern Railroad tracks, Young stayed home.

“They didn’t cut my power, why leave?” he said.

And while Maxey and his neighbors are glad to be back home, they’re undecided whether to stay.

“It’s liable to come back up in the spring; that’s what they (forecasters) say,” he said.

“Around June or July,” another man said.

“It’s a hard decision. Do we move back in, or do we wait and seen what’s going to happen,” Maxey said. “They (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) have said, ‘Relocate,’ but how can you relocate from the place you’ve lived all your life?”

“We just try to make it,” Blue said.