Chotard Landing Resort owner Jerry Johnson looked in the direction of Chotard Lake and took a deep breath.

“I’ve missed this (summer) season,” he said. “There ought to be 200 boats out there fishing.”

An oxbow lake formed when the Mississippi River changed its course ages ago, Chotard Lake in Issaquena County is a popular location for fishing or a weekend getaway. The resort on the river side of the levee is home to 12 full-time residents and about 60 part-timers who own camps in the area.

It’s home to the annual Grand Gulf Bass Club tournament for the Special Olympics during the summer. In February, Vicksburg fisherman Kenny Williams caught a record 327-pound, 8-foot 5 1/4-inch alligator gar, the largest alligator gar caught in the U.S., while fishing on Chotard Lake.

This time of year, Johnson said, the landing usually is populated with people using their camps for vacation or to get away for a weekend.

But right now, the landing is a watery ghost town, where floodwaters meander around elevated houses and only the roofs of lower buildings are visible. Chotard Landing has been flooded since April.

The only signs that people have recently been there are piles of flood-damaged building materials and other items heaped on the porches or landings of homes.

Vicki Worley, who manages the landing’s store and handles condo and cabin rentals for Johnson, moved to Chotard Landing from Brandon a year ago. This was her first flood.

“I’ve read about them and seen pictures,” she said. “I don’t want to ride this rodeo again.”

She said she had to move her belongings to higher ground twice.

“We had to do it by boat that second time,” she said.

Getting to Chotard Landing involves taking U.S. 61 North to Low Water Bridge Road in Issaquena County, taking the northern end of Mississippi 465 along the mainline levee. The road is pockmarked with potholes and ruts caused by the steady traffic of dump trucks in May when the fight against the river was at its peak. People park on the levee and then take a boat to the resort.

Shoving off from the makeshift landing at the base of the levee, Johnson maneuvered his pontoon boat and described the damage.

“Most of these houses are 10 to 12 feet off the ground,” he said.

“That house is 16 feet off the ground,” he said, pointing at one building. “It was the highest one here, and it got 1 1/2 feet of water in it.”

Johnson pointed to a river gauge on the piling of one house that showed a present flood stage of 47 feet.

“It got to 57.1 feet here,” he said. “The current was swift. It’s pretty calm now, but when it got to 52 feet, it was shooting through here.”

The real tragedy of the flood, Johnson said, is that most of the home and camp owners, including himself, didn’t have flood insurance.

“We had built our homes above the 100-year flood level,” he said.

“We never thought it would get this high. I’ve been living here since 1973, and I’ve owned the resort for 20 years. I’ve seen a lot of floods, but this one is the worst,” he said.

Johnson said he had more than 3 1/2 feet of water in his condo.

“We had to move stuff from my rental condos,” he said. “A lot of it we just couldn’t get out.”

Johnson said he’ll rebuild.

“I could get this place ready in a couple of weeks if FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) would leave me alone,” he said. “They won’t let me put nothing back until they inspect it.”

He said most of the resort’s full- and part-time residents are waiting for the waters to recede before returning to clean up and rebuild.

Some people, he said, will leave, “But they weren’t coming back anyway.”

And this year’s Special Olympics bass tournament?

“We’re going to hold it,” Johnson said. “I don’t know what they’ll find when they get here, but we will have the tournament.”