Several water trucks are scattered across the City of Jackson. The National Guard is helping residents fill canisters of non-potable water. People can use it to flush toilets but not much else.
“It took me about 60 gallons to fill up a tub a while ago” As he waited his turn, Wayne Johnson said his neighborhood has been without water since February 16. The back of his pickup truck is stuffed with containers and he has dozens of milk jugs in his passenger seat to fill for his neighbor. “She’s elderly. She can’t handle jugs of water so, I’m handling jugs of water so, you know I’m catching water and got coolers and jugs and everything else. I’m filling bathtubs up with water and everything else just to flush, and do what we can.”
Also at the site is Eva Burkhalter and her daughter Suneva. They're picking up bottled water and filling several containers so they can flush their toilets. Shuneva says “You know, having a baby and having kids at home with no water, it just feels, it’s inhumane. Especially when we’re paying for it. It’s not like we’re lazy or anything like that. We’re paying for it.”
Public Works Director Charles Williams says the city's water pressure needs to stabilize to push water to areas with outages. “We did not expect this to happen, but we’re dealing with the aftermath of it. We are also dealing with the science of how the water system was designed. We can’t change that fact, but what we can do is put all of our efforts into trying to correct it and moving forwards with the restoration process that we’re working with now.”
Until the water is restored, residents are asked to remain patient. But city officials say they do not have a timeline for when that will happen, and residents say their patience is growing thin.
