ATLANTA (AP) – Mattie Jackson’s screened porch has an open-door policy. Relatives and friends are likely to walk up at any time and take a seat on the green iron furniture next to the woman known best as “Miss Mattie” in southeast Atlanta’s Peoplestown neighborhood.
A leading figure in the community for decades, Jackson was the lone representative for three neighborhoods on the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games after the area’s selection for construction of a nearby stadium that later became home to the Atlanta Braves. She’s been credited with helping secure job training programs and affordable housing.
At 93, though, Jackson met a seemingly undefeatable foe: Terrible plumbing.
Jackson and more than 20 neighbors were asked to sell to the city, making way for retention ponds and other measures to minimize damage of persistent flooding in the low-lying area. At least twice since 2009, sewage water backed up from drains and covered her neighbors’ backyards after large storms.
City officials said that buying out residents – or legally taking their properties if necessary – is the best way to solve the expensive flooding problem on the block, which sits on top of a large storm-water junction box that can’t manage heavy rainfall.