Weeks after winter storm, water crisis lingers for one city
By
Mark Puleo, AccuWeather staff writer
Updated Mar 18, 2021 1:04 PM EDT
World Central Kitchen helped supply residents with clean water and food in Jackson, Mississippi, on March 16, after ice storms disrupted the area's clean water supply in February.
The powerful winter storm in mid-February that generated a week's worth of national headlines focused on the widespread power outages that smothered Texas. However, while the rest of the world shifted its gaze from the storm back to the topics of politics, the coronavirus and even the Golden Globes, people in one hard-hit part of the country haven't been able to move on yet.
They also haven't been able to shower, flush toilets or drink water straight from the tap.
For residents of Jackson, Mississippi, the lingering effects of February's winter storm not only outlasted February, but they will likely outlast winter itself. As the first day of spring approaches, Jackson residents are coming up on their fifth week of a water crisis.
Tens of thousands of residents in the Mississippi capital city for weeks have been without safe water to drink, and many have had no running water at all as a result of February's storm. Along with other states in the South, Mississippi was dealt an eight-day stretch of temperatures below 40 degrees, putting a costly strain on Jackson's ancient infrastructure as equipment at water treatment plants were frozen, rendering water pressure inadequate and dangerous.
The faculty and students at Provine High School served prepared meals and distributed bottled water, Thursday, March 11, 2021 in Jackson, Miss. The Jackson Public School District set up sites at several schools to help residents who still are under a boil water notice. Over 400 meals were given out as well as cases of water that school officials hope will be used for cooking since although water pressure has generally returned to much of the city, the water has yet to pass water quality tests. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Once water pressure falls, tests must be conducted to make sure no contaminants have entered the water supply.
By Feb. 22, a week after the storm, more than 300,000 individuals in Mississippi found themselves under a boil water advisory.
But as running water began to be restored that week, dozens of water main breaks left thousands more without running water -- and at the whim of distribution sites. It was at that time that Jackson Public Works Director Charles Williams said the aging infrastructure was at fault.
Earlier this month, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba submitted a request for $47 million in funding to address to crisis, and Malary White, director of External Affairs for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, told AccuWeather that FEMA was actively assisting in the area to distribute pallets of bottled water to residents.
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“We are working with FEMA to do joint damage assessment to get public assistance to get approved for a major disaster declaration,” she told AccuWeather.
Among many organizations giving aid to the area, the World Central Kitchen is one group that has been in Jackson serving food and helping distribute water for weeks. According to a recent update the organization shared with AccuWeather, the volunteer chefs and kitchen workers have helped distribute more than 16,000 freshly-prepared meals and nearly 500,000 bottles of water.
While the focus of the February storm aftermath rightly centered on the plight of Texas residents, many of whom were forced to endure the week of freezing temperatures without heat, the ramifications of those same freezing temperatures have been long-lasting and exacerbated by decades of neglect in Mississippi.
FILE - In this Feb. 22, 2021, file photo, Madonna Manor maintenance supervisor Lamar Jackson left, stacks bottled water brought by Mac Epps of Mississippi Move, as part of the supply efforts by city councilman and State Rep. De'Keither Stamps to a senior residence in west Jackson, Miss. The snow and ice that crippled some states across the South has melted. But it has exposed the fragility of aging waterworks that experts have been warning about for years. Cities across Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi are still grappling with outages that crippled health care facilities and forced families to wait in line for potable water. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
“There’s a saying that you should allow no crisis to go to waste,” Lumumba told The New York Times. “It’s crises like these that really allow us to take stock of conditions of where we are as a city, where we are as a state and hopefully it allows us to build the resolve to address it.”
Lumumba is Black as are more than 80% of the people living in the city, and they are no strangers to the struggles that come with the city's frail water system due to years of administrative '"neglect," as state Rep. Ronnie Crudup put it, according to NBC News.
Since 1970, when white families fled Jackson after the state forced schools in the city to desegregate, response to aid requests has been exceedingly slow or nonexistent from a majority white leadership structure, Donna Ladd wrote in an opinion piece for NBC.
Broken water mains in Jackson, Miss., have played havoc with residences and many businesses and restaurants, such as Barrelhouse in the historic Fondren business district, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021. The aging infrastructure has caused problems throughout the city as the rising temperatures have melted the snow and ice statewide, but tens of thousands of people still have little or no water service, with some waiting more than a week for restoration since the outages began during an extended freeze. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Ladd, founding editor of The Jackson Free Press, added that discrimination against the city has come in the form of withholding financial resources, a trickle-down effect from racist accusations laid out by the The Citizens' Council in the state. Those lacks of funds have led to the failure to maintain Jackson's public schools and its water and sewer systems, she wrote.
Former Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr., who was elected in 1997 as Jackson's first Black mayor, devoted $200 million to fixing the problem decades ago, but the ancient setup has continually failed its residents over the years, Cassandra Welchlin of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable and co-founder of the Mississippi Women's Economic Security Initiative told NBC.
"This was a breakdown of a system that was supposed to be in place for the safety of our citizens," she said. "This water crisis has really exacerbated a system that has never really worked for poor folks, Black folks, seniors, for so many people."
Once the week of devastating temperatures froze the area, that faulty system left thousands in trouble, including Crudup himself. Crudup, living with his wife and two grandchildren in South Jackson, spent more than two weeks without running water.
"We can't bathe, we can't cook food, we can't wash dishes, we can't do laundry. It's tremendously difficult," he told NBC News.
Now, more than a month later, White told AccuWeather that most residents do have their water back on, but the boil advisory had remained in effect until Wednesday when officials lifted the advisory. According to WLBT, the local NBC affiliate, the state health department gave the city the green light to lift the advisory after water samples came back clean on two consecutive days.
Madonna Manor maintenance supervisor Lamar Jackson pours potable water into a resident's empty jugs in Jackson, Miss., Monday afternoon, Feb. 22, 2021. Rising temperatures have melted the snow and ice in Mississippi but tens of thousands of people still had little or no water service, with some waiting a week for restoration since the outages began during an extended freeze. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
"We feel really confident that all the residents on the connection side are receiving water. There still may be a couple of areas that are experiencing low water pressure," Williams said in a press conference earlier this week. "Over the past couple of days, we have been able to stay closer to 90 PSI, somewhere between 87 and 90, and that’s pretty good."
Thunderstorms with strong winds blew through the city on Wednesday evening. However, no damage was reported in the immediate Jackson area. A breezy and cool day is expected on Thursday, and it will be dry.
"That dignity for which Jacksonians are asking, though, includes clear drinking water, pipes without lead and toilets that flush for everyone, regardless of race," Ladd wrote.
"It’s long, long past time to put Citizens Council-era propaganda to rest and treat Black leaders and Black Mississippians like equals, not like pawns in yet another white power game," she said.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier, Spectrum, FuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios.
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News / Winter Weather
Weeks after winter storm, water crisis lingers for one city
By Mark Puleo, AccuWeather staff writer
Updated Mar 18, 2021 1:04 PM EDT
World Central Kitchen helped supply residents with clean water and food in Jackson, Mississippi, on March 16, after ice storms disrupted the area's clean water supply in February.
The powerful winter storm in mid-February that generated a week's worth of national headlines focused on the widespread power outages that smothered Texas. However, while the rest of the world shifted its gaze from the storm back to the topics of politics, the coronavirus and even the Golden Globes, people in one hard-hit part of the country haven't been able to move on yet.
They also haven't been able to shower, flush toilets or drink water straight from the tap.
For residents of Jackson, Mississippi, the lingering effects of February's winter storm not only outlasted February, but they will likely outlast winter itself. As the first day of spring approaches, Jackson residents are coming up on their fifth week of a water crisis.
Tens of thousands of residents in the Mississippi capital city for weeks have been without safe water to drink, and many have had no running water at all as a result of February's storm. Along with other states in the South, Mississippi was dealt an eight-day stretch of temperatures below 40 degrees, putting a costly strain on Jackson's ancient infrastructure as equipment at water treatment plants were frozen, rendering water pressure inadequate and dangerous.
The faculty and students at Provine High School served prepared meals and distributed bottled water, Thursday, March 11, 2021 in Jackson, Miss. The Jackson Public School District set up sites at several schools to help residents who still are under a boil water notice. Over 400 meals were given out as well as cases of water that school officials hope will be used for cooking since although water pressure has generally returned to much of the city, the water has yet to pass water quality tests. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Once water pressure falls, tests must be conducted to make sure no contaminants have entered the water supply.
By Feb. 22, a week after the storm, more than 300,000 individuals in Mississippi found themselves under a boil water advisory.
But as running water began to be restored that week, dozens of water main breaks left thousands more without running water -- and at the whim of distribution sites. It was at that time that Jackson Public Works Director Charles Williams said the aging infrastructure was at fault.
Earlier this month, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba submitted a request for $47 million in funding to address to crisis, and Malary White, director of External Affairs for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, told AccuWeather that FEMA was actively assisting in the area to distribute pallets of bottled water to residents.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP
“We are working with FEMA to do joint damage assessment to get public assistance to get approved for a major disaster declaration,” she told AccuWeather.
Among many organizations giving aid to the area, the World Central Kitchen is one group that has been in Jackson serving food and helping distribute water for weeks. According to a recent update the organization shared with AccuWeather, the volunteer chefs and kitchen workers have helped distribute more than 16,000 freshly-prepared meals and nearly 500,000 bottles of water.
While the focus of the February storm aftermath rightly centered on the plight of Texas residents, many of whom were forced to endure the week of freezing temperatures without heat, the ramifications of those same freezing temperatures have been long-lasting and exacerbated by decades of neglect in Mississippi.
FILE - In this Feb. 22, 2021, file photo, Madonna Manor maintenance supervisor Lamar Jackson left, stacks bottled water brought by Mac Epps of Mississippi Move, as part of the supply efforts by city councilman and State Rep. De'Keither Stamps to a senior residence in west Jackson, Miss. The snow and ice that crippled some states across the South has melted. But it has exposed the fragility of aging waterworks that experts have been warning about for years. Cities across Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi are still grappling with outages that crippled health care facilities and forced families to wait in line for potable water. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
“There’s a saying that you should allow no crisis to go to waste,” Lumumba told The New York Times. “It’s crises like these that really allow us to take stock of conditions of where we are as a city, where we are as a state and hopefully it allows us to build the resolve to address it.”
Lumumba is Black as are more than 80% of the people living in the city, and they are no strangers to the struggles that come with the city's frail water system due to years of administrative '"neglect," as state Rep. Ronnie Crudup put it, according to NBC News.
Since 1970, when white families fled Jackson after the state forced schools in the city to desegregate, response to aid requests has been exceedingly slow or nonexistent from a majority white leadership structure, Donna Ladd wrote in an opinion piece for NBC.
Broken water mains in Jackson, Miss., have played havoc with residences and many businesses and restaurants, such as Barrelhouse in the historic Fondren business district, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021. The aging infrastructure has caused problems throughout the city as the rising temperatures have melted the snow and ice statewide, but tens of thousands of people still have little or no water service, with some waiting more than a week for restoration since the outages began during an extended freeze. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Ladd, founding editor of The Jackson Free Press, added that discrimination against the city has come in the form of withholding financial resources, a trickle-down effect from racist accusations laid out by the The Citizens' Council in the state. Those lacks of funds have led to the failure to maintain Jackson's public schools and its water and sewer systems, she wrote.
Former Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr., who was elected in 1997 as Jackson's first Black mayor, devoted $200 million to fixing the problem decades ago, but the ancient setup has continually failed its residents over the years, Cassandra Welchlin of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable and co-founder of the Mississippi Women's Economic Security Initiative told NBC.
"This was a breakdown of a system that was supposed to be in place for the safety of our citizens," she said. "This water crisis has really exacerbated a system that has never really worked for poor folks, Black folks, seniors, for so many people."
Once the week of devastating temperatures froze the area, that faulty system left thousands in trouble, including Crudup himself. Crudup, living with his wife and two grandchildren in South Jackson, spent more than two weeks without running water.
"We can't bathe, we can't cook food, we can't wash dishes, we can't do laundry. It's tremendously difficult," he told NBC News.
Now, more than a month later, White told AccuWeather that most residents do have their water back on, but the boil advisory had remained in effect until Wednesday when officials lifted the advisory. According to WLBT, the local NBC affiliate, the state health department gave the city the green light to lift the advisory after water samples came back clean on two consecutive days.
Madonna Manor maintenance supervisor Lamar Jackson pours potable water into a resident's empty jugs in Jackson, Miss., Monday afternoon, Feb. 22, 2021. Rising temperatures have melted the snow and ice in Mississippi but tens of thousands of people still had little or no water service, with some waiting a week for restoration since the outages began during an extended freeze. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
"We feel really confident that all the residents on the connection side are receiving water. There still may be a couple of areas that are experiencing low water pressure," Williams said in a press conference earlier this week. "Over the past couple of days, we have been able to stay closer to 90 PSI, somewhere between 87 and 90, and that’s pretty good."
Thunderstorms with strong winds blew through the city on Wednesday evening. However, no damage was reported in the immediate Jackson area. A breezy and cool day is expected on Thursday, and it will be dry.
"That dignity for which Jacksonians are asking, though, includes clear drinking water, pipes without lead and toilets that flush for everyone, regardless of race," Ladd wrote.
"It’s long, long past time to put Citizens Council-era propaganda to rest and treat Black leaders and Black Mississippians like equals, not like pawns in yet another white power game," she said.
Related:
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier, Spectrum, FuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios.
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