JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Federal officials are in Jackson to get a better idea of the scope of city’s water crisis and what assistance will be needed both now and in the future.
Friday afternoon, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba was joined by Congressman Bennie Thompson, a FEMA representative and Mitch Landrieu. Landrieu is currently serving as the White House Infrastructure Coordinator. He and Lumumba stepped in and helped load water into some of the cars at the water distribution that took place at Grove Park Community Center.
”For those citizens, work is in progress, the cavalry in terms of FEMA and other organizations, is here,” said Congressman Bennie Thompson. “And in time, we will mitigate this issue. And long term, hopefully we’ll resolve it so it’ll never happen again.”
”The big point of this is you’ve got a President of the United States who saw this early, said get down there and make sure we’re in the mix,” explained Mitch Landrieu, White house Infrastructure Coordinator. “Make sure that we have lines of communication opened up. And as you can see, you can see all the federal folks here and all of the different agencies on the ground and want to work, you know, with the Mayor and the Governor to kind of get this fixed. That was the President’s directive and that’s what our team is going to do.”
Mayor Lumumba provided a brief update about the status of the system while he was at this water distribution site. He says that as the pressure is increasing at OB Curtis, it could create another problem.
”I do want to forewarn you another issue we may experience as they’re able to increase the pressure at the plant to levels that it has not seen in many years,” described Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. “The challenge then becomes whether we have pipes that rupture across the city. We know that we have brittle pipes. We have aged pipes, just as as our water treatment facilities are aged. And so that’s a challenge that we’re going to have to be on the ground. And dealing with as time permits.”
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