Mississippi lawmaker even feels the strain from Jackson water woes
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — In Mississippi’s capital city, where intermittent periods without running water have become a fact of life for residents, a new disruption to the long-troubled water system persists just days before lawmakers are set to arrive for the state’s 2023 legislative session.
It is amidst frigid conditions that upended infrastructure across the Deep South, pipes in Jackson broke and the city’s water distribution system failed to produce adequate pressure. Crews have spent days working to identify leaks, but pressure still hasn’t been fully restored and a boil water notice remained in place Friday.
According to city leaders, the water system is still vulnerable to weather-related disruptions. Jackson-area legislators could be forced to return home each evening from the Capitol without water access.
Ronnie Crudup Jr. (Democratic state Rep.) was preparing for January’s return to session of the Legislature. He has represented south Jackson since 2019. Then, on Dec. 24 — just three months after a breakdown in Jackson’s water system left many in the city of about 150,000 without water to drink, cook, bathe and flush toilets — it happened again.
On Christmas Eve, after the last of Crudup’s running water went down the drain, his spirits sunk along with it.
“I’m normally very optimistic in pretty much all situations, but this latest water situation is getting the best of me,” Crudup wrote in a Dec. 26 social media post. “Y’all pray for me and my Jackson neighbors. I know if I’m struggling, others are also.”
Local officials are contending with an “old, crumbling system that continues to offer challenge after challenge,” said Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. Following a 2021 winter storm, which left residents without water for days due to frozen pipes, the city’s current water problems are not new. Late August saw the water system collapse partially again after flooding flooded one of the city’s water treatment plants.
Crudup, his father Rev. Ronnie Crudup Sr. founded the New Horizon Church in 1987. His t-shirt of choice during those long afternoons was emblazoned with the motto he applied to the task at hand: “Embrace the grind.”
On September 15, water pressure in most of the city was restored and the citywide boil-water notice was temporarily lifted. The problem would return three months later. Crudup felt the pressure of having to deal with repeated periods where a basic need was becoming a rare resource for his family, and those around him.
“As a man, how am I to take care of my family in the midst of this? As a leader in politics, how can I best serve my constituents. All of my feelings were internalized and I didn’t have any method of getting all that out,” Crudup told The Associated Press.
Crudup’s brother spotted Crudup’s Dec. 26 social-media post and called him with a series of questions.
“Why are you frustrated? Why are you feeling this way?” Crudup recounts his brother asking. “By him asking the right questions, I was able to talk myself through it.”
Crudup said he wants Jackson’s residents, some of whom spent the Christmas holiday looking for a place to shower, to avoid what he called “internalizing the burden.” At New Horizon Church, Crudup works closely with his father, and together they’ve talked through the strain of seeing their neighbors at the mercy of an unreliable water system.
“You’ve got a lot of children who aren’t brushing their teeth and all these other things. Particularly dealing with a lot of the least of these who don’t have the kind of resources he or I, or other people have, it weighs on him,” Crudup Sr. said. “And we do talk about that.”
The $600 million in federal money that Jackson is set to receive for its water system has the potential to “revitalize a whole lot of the economic circumstances,” that have hindered necessary structural repairs, Crudup Sr. said.
Ted Henifin was the U.S. Department of Justice’s manager to fix the long-troubled water supply system. intends to make substantial progress Over a one year period, the list of projects that will safeguard the city from future disruptions was developed.
Crudup Jr. promised that he would encourage Jackson residents to share their frustrations until then.
“People are really stepping in to help their neighbors, not only physically but mentally,” he said. “We know there will be better days ahead, it’s just about making it through this last point.”
___
Michael Goldberg is a Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative corps member. Report for America is an independent national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to cover undercovered issues. Follow him on Twitter @ twitter.com/mikergoldberg.