Due to faulty pipes, thousands of residents in Jackson, Mississippi were out of running water on Monday following a winter storm as the city struggled to restore pressure on its fragile water system.
Jackson officials said in a statement Monday that there were “significant leaks in the system that we have yet to identify.” Chokwe Antar Lumumba, the city’s mayor, blamed the “drastic temperatures,” which fell to a low of 11 degrees on Thursday, and said crews were working with the Environmental Protection Agency to restore pressure.
The city issued a notice on Sunday about boiling water and told residents to turn off faucets and check shops and churches for leaks and broken pipes.
“There is once again no water pressure for most Jackson residents,” Representative Ronnie Crudup said Monday. “It’s a completely different problem this Christmas season because people have family, guests and everything else at Christmas and there’s no water.”
Crudup said his house had no running water and that his family could not flush toilets or shower.
This is just the latest challenge for Jackson’s ailing water system, which was down for days in the summer and was previously down in cold weather.
Boiling Point: Jacksons jahrzehntelanger Kampf für sauberes Wasser
The city set up water distribution sites in several parts of Jackson over the weekend and Monday. Officials asked residents not to report a loss of pressure and noted that the city “is aware of the problems with system pressure.”
Emon Thompson, 54, and his wife were disappointed that they had to cancel guests who were due to arrive for Christmas. He said he is one of the few people he knows in his neighborhood who has some running water, but it is only a small amount and not drinkable when the city mandates boiling water.
“When you let it happen, it gets depressing, especially around Christmas time,” said Thompson, who has lived in Jackson for 33 years. “I try to keep my head up and just do a lot of cleaning and other things.”
Thompson said he and his wife had to leave the church early on Christmas because there were no working restrooms due to the water outage.
“It was a very difficult situation,” he said.
With freezing temperatures across much of the country, several other cities have similar water issues.
Residents in Shreveport, Louisiana, had little or no water pressure due to line interruptions, and Memphis, Tennessee, issued a precautionary warning about boiling water on Monday as officials tried to fix water leaks, which they said could take days.
Cold temperatures have exacerbated the water crisis in Jackson. At the beginning of 2021, residents no longer had running water due to extremely low temperatures after the pipes had frozen.
This year, the city lost running water following the Pearl River flooding due to problems at the city’s main water treatment plant, the O.B. Curtis Water Plant.
For health reasons, the failure was preceded and followed by a recommendation to boil water.
The federal government stepped in in November, and the Biden administration appointed a manager to improve the short-term stability of the water system. One of the most urgent priorities was a winterization project to make the system less susceptible to extreme weather conditions.