Over 180,000 people are left without drinking water and can’t flush their toilets or take showers after floods made Jackson’s water treatment plant fail
- Jackson, Mississippi ran out of water indefinitely leaving more than 180,000 residents without drinking water amid recent historic floods
- Gov. Tate Reeves announced on Monday the city’s failing water system was completely down due to years of poor infrastructure
- Governor Reeves (above) announced on Monday there is not enough water to ‘fight fires’ or ‘flush toilets’ among ‘other critical needs
- Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said the recent Mississippi floods strained the city’s water plan
Mississippi‘s largest city has run out of water indefinitely, leaving 180,000 locals unable to drink from their taps, flush toilets or shower.
The ailing OB Curtis water plant in Jackson was taken offline after it was overwhelmed by recent flooding, which destroyed backup systems put in place to relieve the elderly plant’s main treatment machinery.
Now, the capital city that is home to 150,000 people and 30,000 surrounding communities are pressed to conserve their rations as officials begin to distribute cases of water bottles in a ‘massively complicated logistical task.’
‘The city can not produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets, and to met other critical needs,’ Reeves said at a Monday press conference.
‘Replacing our city’s largest infrastructure of running water with human distribution is a massively complicated logistical task. We need to provide it for up to 180,000 people for an unknown period of time.’
The City of Jackson had previously been on a boil-water advisory since July when the water quality began to plummet.
Residents of the city of Jackson were advised to boil their water for one minute before using it to cook, drink, make ice, brush teeth, or wash dishes, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health.
It can take up to four months to repair the water plant.
The water plant has been running at the very edge of its capacity, and the motors to power the pumps went out recently along with the backup pumps on Monday, Reeves said.
‘We were told on Friday that there was no way to predict exactly when, but that it was near certain that Jackson would begin to fail to produce water sometime in the next several weeks or months if something didn’t materially improve,’ Reeves said.
Reeves began preparing for the water crisis over the weekend before the plant collapsed quicker than expected.
State officials seek to establish an incident command center at the plant on Tuesday in hopes of resuming the operations, according to Reuters.
‘Until it is fixed, it means we do not have reliable running water at scale,’ he said.
In the meantime, the state will begin emergency repairs to quickly restore the water output. It’s unclear if the whole city is completely without water.
Meanwhile, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said the recent Mississippi floods strained the city’s water plant – despite the governor blaming the emergency on years of poor infrastructure.
