The governor of Mississippi declared a state of emergency and called in the national guard after the main water treatment facility in the state capital, Jackson, started to fail, threatening the water supply of up to 250,000 people and leaving many without running water.
Tate Reeves delivered the news a critical water treatment plant in Jackson had begun to fail on Monday evening. The announcement made official what thousands of the city’s 160,000 residents already knew – that water pressure is so low it is impossible to carry out vital daily functions such as flushing toilets or taking showers.
Reeves said the state had begun “preparing for a scenario where Jackson would be without running water for an extended period … We do not have reliable running water at scale”.
Delbert Hosemann, the lieutenant governor, said: “Our understanding is the water and sewer system serving 250,000 citizens of the state and numerous businesses is at the brink of collapsing. We have grave concerns for citizens’ health and safety.”
Since 29 July, households have been under orders to boil all water for drinking, cooking and brushing teeth, to fend off bacterial infections. Now the crisis looks poised to escalate with the possibility the main treatment facility, OB Curtis, could fail completely after its central pumps were seriously damaged in the wake of recent flooding of the Pearl River, following heavy rains.
Local reports suggested bottled water was already running out in groceries and the low pressure was also hampering firefighting operations. All Jackson public schools have switched to virtual teaching “indefinitely”, as has Jackson State University, at least for the rest of this week.
The Jackson State University football coach, Deion Sanders, said the water crisis left his players without air-conditioning or ice. In a video posted to social media, he said he wanted to move players to a hotel so they could shower.
The national guard has been called in to distribute water to firefighting stations, hospitals and private households, although how long the rescue mission can be sustained is in doubt.
One Jackson resident, Cassandra Welchlin, told CNN she was having to buy water to support her three kids, as brown water had been running in her home.
“We still would not use that water, we don’t boil it to do anything with it because grit is in the water,” she said.
The Jackson water crisis is a public safety disaster that was waiting to happen. A cold spell last year left thousands without running water after pipes froze.
The OB Curtis plant has been troubled with long-standing staffing shortages. The city’s mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, said the water infrastructure had suffered from three decades of chronic underfunding.
Lumumba told CNN: “I have said on multiple occasions that it’s not a matter of ‘if’ our system would fail, but a matter of ‘when’ our system would fail … We don’t have the funds in order to deal with 30 years of neglect.”
Maintenance problems have been exacerbated by a half-century of decline in Jackson’s resources, as a result of white flight from the city following the integration of its public schools in 1970. The population of the city, the largest in Mississippi, is now 80% African American with one in four within the official definition of poverty.
Lumumba said on Tuesday the cost of putting the system right could run to “quite possibly the billions of dollars”.
Lumumba is Democrat and was not invited to the Monday night news conference held by the Republican governor. Although the two politicians are often at odds, Lumumba said on Tuesday he was having productive discussions with the health department and the Mississippi emergency management agency and was grateful for state help.
The White House said it was closely monitoring the situation in Mississippi and Joe Biden had been briefed. The press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said federal agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency were looking at how to speed up the delivery of treatment equipment to shore up Jackson’s failing facilities.
“We will continue to partner closely with state and local officials to support the people of Mississippi, and stand ready to assist further,” Jean-Pierre said.
Jean-Pierre also said the state had not asked for help with trucking in drinking water, and declined to say why.
Late on Tuesday, Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration request, directing his team to surge federal assistance to the region, Jean-Pierre tweeted.
“We are committed to helping the people of Jackson and the state of Mississippi during this urgent time of need,” she said.
As a sign of how serious the crisis has become, Jackson authorities ordered a halt to all sampling of city drinking water. They said they did not want to contribute further to the decline in water pressure.