Rising waters Thursday night brought back worries for residents near Robbins Lake.

Heavy rains brought memories of 2004 flooding back, when storms filled the lake and overran the lake’s dam.

The dam is crowned by a road, the main way in and out of a small subdivision.

Thursday night’s rain raised the water levels again and softened the earth. With a touch of the foot, waterlogged ground gave way.

Donald Berry, 28 Robbins Lake Road, lives close to the dam. He said he was worried about access to his home.

“It rose yesterday very quickly when it started raining,” Berry said. “The community really only has one way in or out of here.”

Supervisor Sammy Cauthen represents that district of Adams County. He said the county had plans to reinforce the structure, a county-maintained road on a private dam, but the money hadn’t come in yet.

“The main problem is if that dam were to wash out, people downstream from the dam would have a big problem,” Cauthen said.

The county has already done some work on the dam, installing an emergency spillway several years ago, said Bryan Stringer, district conservationist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The county applied for money from the USDA to improve the dam in 2004 after the overflow, Stringer said. It was initially approved.

The delay came when the county had to get easements to do repairs on private land, he said.

“In March last year the deadlines for easements passed, and the government had to pull (the funds), a lot of which was used in Katrina-hit areas,” Stringer said.

The county re-applied for funding last month, he said, and they’re waiting for the nod from Jackson and the federal government.

“We’re waiting for the funding to come in, but we don’t know when it would be,” he said.

Stringer said he looked at the structure Friday morning, and it looked like it was still in good shape.

“We still have another foot or so before it reaches the emergency spillway,” he said. “It won’t last forever, but forever might be a while.”