Land Clearing in Lucedale, MS

Land clearing on Lucedale's red loam and river bottoms

Lucedale shares its name with a soil series that USDA soil scientists set up in George County in 1970. The Lucedale soil is deep and well drained, with dark red clay loam under the topsoil. On that upland ground, clearing with the dozer and root rake leaves clean ground for a pad or pasture. Some upland in the county is Susquehanna clay instead, which USDA describes as wet during heavy rain.

USDA soil maps rate about a quarter of George County as frequently flooded, in the river swamps and creek bottoms. The Chickasawhay River that runs past Waynesboro meets the Leaf River near Merrill, northwest of town. USDA's 2024 land cover map counts over a third of the county as woody wetland.

Bottomland may count as wetland, and putting fill there can take a US Army Corps of Engineers permit. That is why we steer house pads to the high, well drained ground.

Inside the Lucedale city limits or out in the county?

Lucedale is the only city in George County, so land outside it falls under county rules. Inside the city, building permits come from City Hall under Lucedale's land development code. Site plans and new subdivisions go through the city's Site Plan Review Committee.

On those sites, trees marked for protection get a fence before any clearing starts. We clear up to that fence and leave the kept trees standing. Lucedale also runs its own floodplain ordinance for land inside the city.

Out in the county, George County's flood ordinance treats fill and grading as development. In a mapped flood zone, that work needs a floodplain development permit before it starts. Permit applications go to the county's floodplain administrator.

Utilities and county roads around Lucedale

Inside the city, water and sewer come from the City of Lucedale. Outside the city, water systems include Combined Utilities, Rocky Creek Utilities, Multi-Mart Water Association and Bexley Water Association. Mississippi 811 says most lines on private property belong to the owner, and locates usually stop at the meter. That run from the meter to the house is where our water and sewer line trenching comes in.

Outside the sewer lines, the Mississippi State Department of Health evaluates the soil and site for a septic system. You need that permit before you can get a water meter. Extensive grading after the evaluation can void that permit, so we plan the pad around it.

George County runs its roads by supervisor district, and each district's road department handles drainage and right-of-way work. Before a driveway culvert goes in off a county road, ask your supervisor's office what it requires. We cut in the entrance and set the culvert to match.

After a storm: downed timber and damaged buildings

NOAA storm records show three EF1 tornadoes touched down in and around Lucedale on April 23, 2020. One crossed Beaver Dam Road, and another snapped pines and uprooted big oaks near Evanston. That October, Hurricane Zeta raced across inland southeast Mississippi and left widespread tree damage.

Timber a storm lays across a fence line or a homesite is land clearing work. We cut it up and load it, and our own trucks haul it off. If a storm leaves a house or barn past saving, our demolition work takes it down and grades the lot.