The approximately 150,000 inhabitants of the capital of Mississippi, Jackson, mostly African-Americans, were still deprived of clean running water Thursday, September 1, the authorities having asked those who still have a power supply to shower with their mouths closed. This city in the southern United States, where 80% of the population is black and where the poverty rate is high, has been experiencing a serious water crisis for years.
But, since the beginning of the week, it is plunged into an emergency situation. Flooding has disrupted the operation of an essential and already aging water treatment plant. By opening the tap, the inhabitants sometimes only see a few drops flowing out, or brown water. They are forced to queue to collect bottles of water.
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A “nightmare” for the 150,000 inhabitants
“It’s like living a nightmare,” Erin Washington, a student at Jackson State University, told CNN. And what remains of running water should not be drunk, authorities have warned. “In the shower, make sure your mouth isn’t open because, again, you shouldn’t swallow that water,” Jim Craig of Mississippi health officials said Wednesday. City authorities noted an improvement on Thursday, with some neighborhoods beginning to regain pressure. The water treatment plant “made significant progress overnight and this morning,” said the town hall. A pump, urgently rented, was installed there on Wednesday.
“Problems remain to be resolved in the coming days, but the outlook is for progress today,” welcomed the town hall. But daily life is turned upside down. Schools have had to switch to distance learning, and businesses are paying a heavy price. “Hotels and restaurants, already on a tightrope, cannot open or must adapt, buying ice cubes, water or sodas,” Jeff Rent, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Commerce, told CNN. Jackson.
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“People are on edge,” Sarah Friedler, manager of Brent’s Drugs restaurant, told local newspaper Clarion Ledger. They “choose not to eat at Jackson. They just go somewhere else, so they don’t have to worry about this problem,” she said. The situation suffered by the inhabitants of Jackson recalls one of the worst health scandals in American history, that of the contaminated water in Flint, Michigan, during the past decade. In this industrial city, a change in the drinking water supply source, decided as a cost-saving measure, had permanently poisoned the network, exposing the inhabitants to lead poisoning.
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