WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) on Friday reported the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has approved more than $6.85 million in emergency relief grants to defray the costs for repairing and reconstructing federal roadways damaged by flooding, storms and other events in recent years.

The largest of three FHWA Emergency Relief Program grants for work in Mississippi, totaling $4.3 million, will support ongoing work by the National Park Service to overcome 2020 flood damage at the Vicksburg National Military Park and Natchez Trace National Parkway.

“I’m pleased the Federal Highway Administration continues to support work to ensure public safety by restoring the Vicksburg National Military Park and Natchez Trace Parkway even four years after terrible storms caused so much damage,” Hyde-Smith said. 

Hyde-Smith is a ranking member of the Senate Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee.

In 2020, Hyde-Smith visited the flood-damaged military park and worked to secure federal commitments to correct damages caused by mudslides and erosion following storms, her office said in a statement. In September 2020, FHWA awarded an initial $8 million to begin correcting storm damage at the military park and Natchez Trace parkway.

The FHWA is also providing $1.2 million to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to continue work at the Hillside National Wildlife Refuge in Holmes County, which also sustained significant damage in the February 2020 storms.

A third grant worth $1.35 million has been awarded to the Mississippi Department of Transportation to support reopening a State Route 28 steel truss bridge over the Pearl River near Georgetown, which was closed after a collision damaged it in March 2024.  The bridge is a key traffic link between Copiah and Simpson counties.