After the COVID-19 pandemic forced the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge in Jackson to shut down in 2020, officials with the nonprofit were excited to reopen earlier this year.
They planned a celebratory grand reopening ceremony to be held Thursday to help get the word out that cancer patients and their caregivers who live more than 40 miles outside Jackson could once again stay at the lodge, free of charge, while undergoing their treatment at several of the city’s hospitals.
But on Monday, three days before the Thursday ceremony, 11 cancer patients and their caregivers staying at the lodge were forced to evacuate Jackson when the capital city’s water system began failing.
The American Cancer Society is footing the bill for their hotel rooms outside of Jackson.
“We don’t want patients to have to delay their treatment just because we’ve got water problems in Jackson,” said Letitia Thompson, vice president of regional cancer support for the American Cancer Society. “So we’ve been able to find and pay for them to stay in area hotels.”
Patients also have access to a van to transport them to and from their treatment.
Thompson said the lodge, which first opened in 2019, is experiencing fluctuations in water pressure that have created plumbing issues. Patients and their caregivers continue to be housed at the suburban hotel, and Thompson said they will not be brought back to the lodge until it’s had a week of reliable water pressure.
“(The water pressure) comes and goes … Certainly the American Cancer Society works hard to be good stewards of the dollars people give us, but we can’t put cancer patients at risk. We don’t want cancer patients to wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to flush the toilet,” she said.
The lodge accommodates patients who are getting treatment at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, St. Dominic Memorial Hospital, Mississippi Baptist Medical Center and other treatment centers in Jackson. A patient must first receive a referral from a treatment facility to begin the process of using the lodge.
Thompson also said the organization is working to offer its services to cancer patients who live in the Jackson area as well.
“We want to be there for cancer patients who are dealing with this water shortage who live here in Jackson,” said Thompson. “We’re working to set up a system to take referrals and requests for cancer patients who might need hotel rooms for whatever time they need it … We want to eliminate as many barriers for treatment as we can.”
Excited to celebrate reopening of Hope Lodge – for cancer patients in treatment. Sadly patients evac’d due to water issues… Jxn must be better. I live here and believe in Jxn. I’d be happy to pay H20 bill if I’d get one. @ACS_Mississippi@MSMA1pic.twitter.com/vfFF1VJ0rA
Greenwood Leflore Hospital announced on Thursday that it is closing some of its operations and laying off more employees due to its perilous financial situation.
Several of the hospital’s units, including intensive care and labor and delivery, will remain closed after a sewage problem forced the hospital to shut down in mid-August.
Three of its clinics are also closing, according to a hospital-wide memo sent by Interim Chief Executive Officer Gary Marchand.
He estimated that 20 full-time and 20 part-time staff members will be laid off as a result. The hospital already laid off 30 employees in May to offset losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The hospital, which is jointly owned by Leflore County and the city of Greenwood, cited financial losses from the temporary shutdown last month and severe staffing shortages as the reason for the reduction in services. It is one of the largest employers in the area.
The 208-bed hospital suspended inpatient services on Aug. 16 after clogged manholes forced sewage into the crawl space below the hospital, causing patients to be transferred to other facilities and clinics to be shut down for three days days. Hospital officials estimate this shutdown cost them $1.2 million in revenue.
After 12 of the hospital’s medical and surgical beds were reopened on Aug. 24, hospital officials said they were still conducting a financial analysis to determine if certain services remained viable. Thursday’s announcement shows they determined that many were not.
“… It became apparent that the revenue losses we incurred during the shut-down significantly impacted GLH’s plans to operate its services until a lease could be finalized … The estimated loss of revenue related to this event requires that we revise our previous plans,” Marchand said in the memo.
The hospital’s main goal, Marchand said, is to stay operational through the end of the year.
Marchand also announced that the hospital received a joint-operation proposal from the University of Mississippi Medical Center that could serve as a windfall for the hospital.
UMMC declined to comment for this story.
In an attempt to stay afloat, Greenwood Leflore officials are trying to renegotiate the prices they pay vendors for various supplies and services until the lease agreement with UMMC is finalized.
Marchand claimed that the ICU remaining closed is due to a lack of staff, saying the unit has less than half of the personnel it would need to operate safely. Current ICU employees will be allowed to fill vacant positions in other departments.
Marchand also cited a staffing shortage as the reason for the labor and delivery unit closure, saying the unit only has 15% of the staff it needs. However, a pregnant person who arrives at the hospital in active delivery will be stabilized in the hospital’s emergency department before being transferred to another hospital.
The primary driver of the hospital’s staffing shortage is the discontinuation of premium payments for part-time nurses. These nurses were not brought in through a staffing agency, as most contract nurses are, but instead signed in-house agreements that netted them $50-55 per hour, a much higher rate than the $24-$35 per hour rate paid to registered nurses employed full-time.
The hospital’s After Hours clinic will be closing and its providers will be consolidated into the emergency room’s Fast Track services, which Marchand said serves a similar function. Magnolia Medical and Ryan White, two of the hospital’s clinics that specialize in HIV treatment, are also closing due to low patient volumes.
Jackson Public Schools high school football teams Callaway, Murrah, Provine and Jim Hill will renew old rivalries Saturday at a new venue: Pearl High School, across the river in Rankin County.
The City of Jackson water crisis has altered the lives of its citizenry – and also the way Jackson Public Schools football teams play the sport. Callaway and Murrah were originally scheduled to play at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium at 11 a.m. Saturday morning. Instead, they will play at the same time at Ray Rogers Stadium in Pearl. Provine and Jim Hill will follow in the second half of the doubleheader at 3 p.m.
The moves were forced because of the water crisis, which has caused any number of issues, including that the toilets and urinals won’t flush at The Vet. There isn’t enough water pressure.
The agreement to play at Pearl was finalized early Thursday afternoon, less than 48 hours before Murrah and Callaway will kick off.
Neverthless, Thursday’s news was welcome. Murrah coach Marcus Gibson probably spoke for all four coaches when he said, “We want to play and we need to play.”
Murrah High School head football coach Marcus Gibson, during practice Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022 in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
JPS football has experienced tough sledding in recent years. The 2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which continued to alter schedules in 2021. The water crisis has just added additional obstacles.
“Our kids have been through so much in the last three years that this delay was not even something they were concerned about,” Gibson said. “They have learned throughout the pandemic to move forward regardless, to not worry about the uncontrollable and to control what they can. They are some of the most resilient people I have ever been around.”
Gibson, who teaches five oral communications classes when he’s not coaching football, is resilient as well. He has to be. Besides COVID and the water crisis, he has the normal football problems every coach faces, including losing his starting quarterback to a foot injury in the Mustangs’ opening game, a 49-45 defeat at the hands of Cleveland Central last week.
Murrah High School football players take a break from practice to hydrate. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
“We played well,” Gibson said. “It was a game we could have won and probably should have won.”
The Mustangs suffered in that game with major cramping issues.
“Our kids are in shape, but even so they were cramping as early as the second quarter,” Gibson said.
It wasn’t because of water issues, Gibson said. Murrah parents and local businesses have donated bottled water – and ice – to the team. The Mustangs go through the cases of bottled water rapidly.
“The deal is, because of COVID, they can’t share,” Gibson said. “Once they open the bottle, it’s theirs to finish. A lot of our players bring ice and water from home in their own thermos bottles.”
JPS schools limit football practices to 90 minutes until the weather cools – and 30 minutes of that must be spent indoors.
“It’s hard to get the conditioning we need, so we have to make really good use of the time,” Gibson said.
One of the biggest issues for the football coaches was presented when the schools went to virtual learning because of the water crisis.
“Normally, you have the players at school and they just come on down to the field house for practice when the bell rings,” Gibson said. “Now they are coming from home. Not many of our players have their own cars so they have to catch rides. Some of them are at home babysitting younger siblings, so they can’t leave until a parent gets home. There’s lots of problems you don’t think about until they happen.”
In the day following President Joseph Biden’s federal emergency declaration to aid Jackson’s drinking water recovery, city and state officials announced a setback in restoring pressure on Wednesday due to continuing effects from flood and rainwater on the treatment process.
After a promising increase in pressure on Tuesday, floodwaters coming in from the Ross Barnett Reservoir forced one side of the treatment plant to shut down Wednesday morning, state health officials said, lowering pressure for residents throughout Jackson.
“Around five o’clock this morning, the intake water from the (Ross Barnett) Reservoir that is still impacted by flooding and rain created a chemical imbalance with the conventional treatment side of the plant, which affected particulate removal, causing that side of the plant to be temporarily shut down, resulting in a water pressure loss from the conventional side,” said Jim Craig, Senior Deputy and Director at the Mississippi State Department of Health.
While reiterating that it’s impossible to know how many homes have low or no water pressure, Gov. Tate Reeves said that, during the afternoon, there were “very low levels in virtually every (elevated water) tank throughout” Jackson.
The goal is for the pressure at O.B. Curtis to reach 87 pounds per square inch (PSI), Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said. The pressure had climbed back up to 80 PSI on Tuesday night, he said, but fell back to 40 PSI after the setbacks on Wednesday.
At 40 PSI, most surface water customers have “low to no pressure,” a release from the city said.
While the plant is now treating and distributing water from the conventional side again, the water contains high levels of turbidity, Craig said, meaning that residents may see cloudiness and some color in their water. The state got approval from the Environmental Protection Agency to release water with high turbidity, and Craig added that despite its appearance, the water is safe to use for sanitation and is consumable when boiled.
Having evaluated the plant, the state health department has put together a list of needed fixes for O.B. Curtis, which include repairing raw water screens, replacing “quite a few” pumps and motors, and draining the sedimentation basins, which have a sludge build-up.
Jackson officials announced that a temporary water pump had been installed at O.B. Curtis and is now running, increasing the production ability by 5 million gallons of water per day.
Both Lumumba and Reeves were hopeful that the system would see gains in water pressure overnight when the demand for water is low, although Reeves added “there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done.”
“I do want to be clear and set expectations that there will be future interruptions, including the one today,” Reeves said Wednesday.
The governor detailed the ongoing water distribution effort, which, starting Thursday, will include 600 members of the National Guard, who will help give out water from the state’s “mega-sites” starting at noon. Reeves added that the Mississippi Forestry Commission and Mississippi Department of Public Safety will also be assisting.
The city is also distributing water; find a list of sites here.
While local, state and federal officials scramble to restore the city of Jackson’s failed water system in the short-term, Mississippi state lawmakers and legislative leaders are meeting privately this week to discuss long-term solutions for the capital city’s collapsing system.
State officials knowledgeable of the deliberations agree that the immediate need is to restore an adequate flow to all parts of the city and end the need to boil water for drinking. But they also stress that much more is needed for a long-term fix for Jackson’s water system.
That fix will require legislation — both at the state level and perhaps on the federal level.
Members of Jackson’s legislative delegation met with Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba Wednesday afternoon and planned to meet with U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson Wednesday night to discuss possible long-term solutions.
Thompson, who represents a large swath of the capital city, has vowed support of a workable plan to fix the water system. U.S. Rep. Michael Guest, who also represents a small portion of Jackson, said, “I am working in Congress to help find solutions and to put Jackson back on a pathway to being the capital city we need and deserve, but it is going to take a combined effort from leaders at all levels.”
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the only statewide Republican who owns a home inside the city of Jackson, has been meeting with Jackson lawmakers and other prominent state leaders since before the Jackson water system failed to brainstorm ideas for a permanent solution.
Various proposals have emerged in these talks over the past week, several people with direct knowledge of the deliberations told Mississippi Today. The ideas include:
Creating a “regional water authority” to run the system, which also serves Byram and parts of Hinds County.
Putting the city water system in a temporary conservatorship run by the state Public Service Commission, with the goal of passing the system back to city leaders after service has been restored.
Creating some new state entity or commission to take full, permanent control of the city’s water system.
Privatizing Jackson’s water system, leasing it to a private company that would manage it moving forward.
Hosemann said in an interview with Mississippi Today on Wednesday that he’s been “saddened and sickened” by the water crisis and watching it make national news. He said a long-term fix for Jackson’s water and sewerage will be an expensive, “monumental task.” But he vowed: “We will have a plan, and we will put Jackson back on its water feet.”
Hosemann said the task now at hand for a long-term solution is for state, federal, city of Jackson and Hinds County leaders to “first get a cogent plan.”
But getting this large group of politicians to agree on one single plan hasn’t been accomplished after many years of effort. Any of the options currently being discussed would require Jackson giving up at least some autonomy and control of its water operations.
As recently as 2021, city leaders including Lumumba have bristled at state attempts to ride herd over the city. These efforts include an attempted state takeover of Jackson’s regional airport, the state requiring a special board to oversee infrastructure work funded by a special 1-cent city sales tax, and recently lawmakers requiring state oversight of federal pandemic stimulus money for water and sewerage projects — requirements that were not placed on other cities.
Lumumba has described such state attitudes toward the capital city as “paternalistic” and “racist.” There has been an icy relationship between the majority Black, majority Democratic capital city and the white Republican state leadership that runs most of state government from Jackson.
But Hosemann said he doesn’t foresee such issues hindering teamwork on solving the water crisis. He noted Lumumba this week said he welcomes state assistance dealing with the issue. Both Hosemann and Gov. Tate Reeves, who is leading the state’s response to the short-term crisis, said they’ve met with the mayor and the city’s legislative delegation in recent days.
This would appear to be progress, although it’s notable that Lumumba and other city leaders have been absent at Reeves’ and state leaders’ recent press conferences on emergency water operations and vice versa.
Lumumba addressed this in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
“I’ve heard people say we’re having dueling press conferences,” Lumumba said. “That is not how I would characterize it.” He said he and Reeves are both trying to address the public “early and often” and are “leaning forward.” He said there is a “cooperative effort.”
A prevailing question about a state-sanctioned, long-term fix of the water system is whether the governor will call a special session soon or wait for the regular session in 2023 to address the water crisis.
Reeves recently said his primary focus is solving the immediate problem and that at some point legislators “would be able to weigh in a potential … long-term solution.” He said he had pledged to work with them on that solution.
Sen. John Horhn, a Democrat from Jackson, said waiting to the regular session “would give us time to come up with a strategy to determine what kind of system it will be (moving forward) and who will own it.”
Horhn said, “If state officials are going to provide a significant portion of the resources, we are going to want a say” in the operation of the system.
The mayor has estimated that solution would cost more than $1 billion.
Rep. Earle Banks, a Democrat from Jackson, told Mississippi Today on Wednesday he and several other Jackson lawmakers support potential legislation that would place the city’s water system in a conservatorship “under the auspices of the three-member Public Service Commission.” The PSC could contract with outside companies to help run the system while the multiple problems were addressed. Then at some point down the road, the operation of the system would be returned to Jackson city government.
The PSC, which regulates most utilities in the state, currently has no authority over the Jackson water system. The PSC could petition a court for an order to take over a rural system facing similar issues.
Hosemann on Wednesday mentioned the regionalized water authority idea. He said the state “has a history with regional water authority” on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of numerous water systems. He said Jackson’s system could be considered regional because it already serves the city of Byram and parts of Hinds County.
Some of those Coast systems at the time of Katrina had been in disrepair and struggling, and the creation of a six-county regional authority was required to qualify for federal money to not just replace them, but rebuild them bigger and better.
However, there was great infighting among cities and counties wanting to control their own water systems, and in the end, the Coast regional authority passed by lawmakers in 2006 was really regional in name only, and the legislation also created six separate county authorities, allowed any who wanted to opt out, and allowed cities to mostly run their own systems.
Hosemann said he wrote a letter last week to Jackson and Hinds County elected leaders urging them to put up all they can of the combined $87 million they received in federal pandemic stimulus money. The Legislature this year passed a program to match any such spending on water and sewerage 1-to-1 with federal money the state received.
The city has planned to earmark $25 million of its money, and Hinds County leaders have discussed pledging about $8 million. Both have earmarked millions of their funds for other things. Hosemann said they should reconsider this, and put more of it up for the state infrastructure match, and use it to address Jackson’s water issues.
“I will be greatly disappointed if they don’t spend more of it on this,” Hosemann said. He said the state also still has $345 million of its pandemic funds it hasn’t spent. He said he’s also hopeful that the federal government will help with funding for solving Jackson’s crisis.
Some members of Jackson’s legislative delegation are beginning to publicly acknowledge that the city handing over at least some control to the state is a necessity.
“To get the money the state controls, I expect state leaders to insist on changes to the Jackson water system,” state Sen. David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson, said in social media post. “I am open to any discussion, provided that it 1) must include significant money that is sufficient to fix the problem and 2) protects the citizens, especially low income citizens, with fair water rates. If we can convince the governor and state legislative leaders to spend what is needed to fix our water system, we must say YES. Inaction and complaints are not an option.”
“I especially want to point out that this problem is bigger than Jackson,” Blount continued.
Banks, the state representative, said there are three issues facing Jackson’s water and sewer infrastructure. They are:
The immediate problem of the water treatment plants failures caused by a number of factors, including recent flooding and the inability of the city to properly staff the plants.
The aging distribution system, which consists of 1,500 miles of pipes, some 100 years old, that often break, especially during extreme cold weather. Break in February 2021 during a winter storm resulted in a prolonged citywide water failure.
Wastewater issues that have resulted in the city dumping millions of tons or raw sewage into the Pearl River or its tributaries.
All of those issues have placed the city in the crosshairs of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, the recent lack of water pressure in many parts of the city has resulted in President Joe Biden issuing a federal disaster proclamation.
On Wednesday, Lumumba said he spoke with both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, both of whom assured him there will be federal help.
“They both assured me that we will have the full arm of support from the federal government in any possible way we can help,” Lumumba said.
That federal aid will provide the state and city technical assistance through the Corps of Engineers to help ensure the water pumps are operational.
In addition Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley of Nettleton announced Wednesday that the National Association of Water Companies, a group of the nation’s largest water utilities, “are willing to provide free technical assistance with boots on the ground.” Presley said he would be “connecting” the group with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
While local, state and federal leaders begin to draw battle lines over a permanent fix, the water system’s failure has spurred unprecedented state and federal level conversations about long-term solutions.
“We will not fail at this,” Hosemann said on Wednesday. “We’ve faced catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina as a neighborhood. Mississippi is a neighborhood, and 200,000 of our citizens are in trouble. We are going to get central Mississippi back on its feet.”
Days after an emergency was declared over Jackson’s water system, Hinds County’s youth detention center located in the city is getting by with bottled water for drinking and water brought in to flush toilets.
“I don’t think we’re having problems at this time at Henley-Young,” Board of Supervisors President Credell Calhoun said Wednesday afternoon. “I don’t think it has gotten that bad, maybe it was for a short while.”
The Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center houses boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 17 who have been accused of a misdemeanor or felony. It is also a temporary place for those awaiting a hearing, placement in another youth facility or transfer to another jurisdiction or agency, according to the facility’s page on the Hinds County website.
The facility has a capacity of 84 beds, but Calhoun said it has been operating at a reduced capacity and about 30 juveniles are currently there.
Henley-Young Interim Executive Director Marshand Crisler said Wednesday morning the water situation at the facility is fine, but he didn’t provide details and referred comment to County Administrator Kenny Wayne Jones. Jones declined to comment through a staff member.
District 5 Supervisor Bobby McGowan, whose district includes Henley-Young, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The Hinds County Detention Center and Work Center, which serve adults, are located in Raymond and are not experiencing impacts from Jackson’s water crisis. Sheriff Tyree Jones said Monday the facilities, which are part of Raymond’s water system, have full water capacity and detainees have access to water.
Henley-Young is not under the purview of the sheriff’s office.
Hinds County is looking to build a new jail to house adult detainees next to Henley-Young in Jackson. Calhoun said it is a way to come into compliance with issues identified by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Part of that plan is to build a water tower and pump that would hook into Jackson’s water system.
“It should be able to help alleviate low water pressure in South Jackson,” Calhoun said.
The county has not begun construction on the jail yet, he said, but now that a land disposition and lease have been completed, the board of supervisors can make plans when to break ground.
Thousands of Jacksonians with kidney failure rely on clean water to power the dialysis treatments that keep them alive. As the city’s water system collapses, dialysis providers have brought in tanker trucks full of water to ensure patients don’t have to miss their treatment.
Lack of access to clean water also creates risks for patients who perform their dialysis treatments at home– and puts kidney patients at greater danger of health consequences from impure water.
On Tuesday afternoon, Derek Whitaker pulled into the parking lot of the Jackson Medical Mall, towing a 6,000 gallon tank full of water from Broussard, Louisiana. A tanker truck from Missouri was already hooked up to a pump that was delivering water into the mall, which houses a dialysis unit.
Whitaker, who works with the disaster response company Macro, has traveled the country providing relief after hurricanes and tornadoes. Now, he and at least two colleagues have come to Jackson to deliver life’s most basic necessity – and one that is even more essential for people with kidney failure.
One dialysis nurse told Mississippi Today that about six weeks ago, her clinic brought in a tanker truck full of water because of pressure fluctuations. The dialysis process requires about 10 gallons a minute, she said. The clinic first needed to use the tanker truck about two weeks ago.
“They need this in order to live,” said the nurse, who requested not to be identified by name because she was not authorized to speak to the media. “And they would not live more than—some people a few days, some a week without dialysis … to have a city that doesn’t have water is just unconscionable to me. I don’t understand how it ever got to that.”
Mississippi has one of the country’s highest rates of kidney failure. More than 9,000 Mississippians are living with end-stage kidney disease, meaning their kidneys have essentially stopped functioning. Black Americans are roughly three times likelier than white Americans to develop kidney failure.
In Jackson, the rate of kidney disease is 26% higher than the national average, according to the Mississippi Kidney Foundation. And Mississippians have the highest mortality rate from chronic kidney disease of any state in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dialysis is a medical procedure that acts as an artificial kidney. The patient’s blood is diverted into a machine where it passes through membranes that remove waste before returning it to the body. Patients can do dialysis at home after they have been trained in the process, or visit a clinic or hospital three times a week for about four hours.
A reliable water source is generally essential for dialysis, which can require 300 to 600 liters of ultra-clean water during a single week. The filtration systems clean the water – ordinary tap water isn’t clean enough for the process – but if the local water source isn’t producing water quickly enough, the process can’t work.
According to the health department, no dialysis centers in Jackson have had to close as of Wednesday. But almost all of them have had to make costly adjustments to continue operating. On Tuesday afternoon, officials said it still wasn’t clear when Jackson will have clean, abundant drinking water.
Fresenius Medical Care, the largest dialysis company in the city with four Jackson locations providing in-center treatment, said it had brought in tanker trucks for three of their facilities. At its southwest Jackson location, the truck has been in place for about a month or longer because of issues with water quality and pressure, said Richi Lesley, Mississippi regional vice president.
“It comes at a great expense,” he said. “The resources of getting a tanker truck in place, getting the tanker truck filled, having them on-site for the hours to set and support – when you do think about in terms of how many shifts we’re operating at each of the facilities and each individual patient shift is normally around four hours, so it’s a lot of water.”
Lesley declined to specify how much each truck costs the company.
“If we gave the number, I think a lot of people would be running out trying to get in the tanker truck business,” he said.
The north Jackson Fresenius location still has water, he added, but a tanker truck is in position in case that changes.
A fourth Fresenius facility located inside St. Dominic Memorial Hospital uses the hospital’s independent water system.
Fresenius serves 500 to 600 patients in Jackson, Lesley said.
DaVita, Inc. operates three Jackson locations, two of which have been affected by the water crisis, said Chris Price, division vice president at DaVita, who oversees Mississippi operations. The company implemented “emergency water solutions” on Tuesday morning.
“These solutions include water from sources outside of Jackson that will remain subject to our full treatment and quality testing procedures,” Price said. “We will keep these emergency measures in place until confidence in the reliability of city water sources is restored.”
The water crisis also threatens Jacksonians’ ability to safely access dialysis at home because that process requires careful attention to hygiene, said TJ Mayfield, executive director of the Mississippi Kidney Foundation. Mayfield is a former dialysis patient who received a kidney transplant in 2019.
“If you don’t have water to flush, if you don’t have water to drain out your dialysis that you’re doing overnight or home dialysis, how do you clean it properly?” Mayfield said. “How do you make sure you wash your hands properly so that you don’t catch an infection? All of that plays a large factor into home dialysis.”
Mayfield said clean drinking water is critical for people with kidney conditions — and to ensure healthy people don’t develop kidney issues. When clean drinking water isn’t available or costs the same as soda, he pointed out, people are likelier to choose sugary drinks. He is working to distribute bottled water to dialysis patients in Jackson.
Valerie Bailey, a nurse practitioner with more than a decade of experience working with kidney patients in Jackson, said people with kidney issues are also more vulnerable to health problems from unclean water.
“Any renal patient has to be extremely diligent about keeping up with their fluid intake, because their kidneys are unable to properly filter out excess fluids,” Bailey said. “If they do not have clean water, then their body, their kidneys are not going to be able to filter out those impurities in the contaminated water, like a normally functioning kidney might be able to.”
Dialysis providers who spoke with Mississippi Today said they are experienced in disaster response, not only because industry standards require it, but also because Jackson has seen this before.
During the 2021 ice storm that crippled the city’s water system, Fresenius worked with Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) to ensure tanker trucks full of water could reach their clinics.
Whitaker, who came to the Medical Mall from Louisiana with the water tanker, drove around southern Louisiana after Hurricane Ida and to Kentucky after the devastating tornadoes earlier this year. The combat veteran often carries fuel to help people power generators after losing power.
“We kind of get out and see the countryside a little bit when there’s a disaster,” he said. He didn’t think much about the nature of the disaster — long-running and manmade — that had brought him to the mall parking lot.
“To me, it’s my job,” he said.
Whitaker said he doesn’t know how long he will be in Jackson. He’ll sleep in his truck and shower at the facility where he will refill the tanker, somewhere outside of town.
Mississippi Today has partnered with WJTV to provide live streams and videos of press conferences regarding Jackson’s water crisis. Gov. Tate Reeves provided an update at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.
WASHINGTON — La Agencia Federal para el Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA, por sus siglas en inglés) anunció que asistencia federal está disponible para el estado de Mississippi para complementar los esfuerzos de respuesta estatales debido a las condiciones de emergencia por la crisis de agua que comenzaron el 30 de agosto, y continúan.
La acción del presidente autoriza a FEMA a coordinar todas las labores de ayuda por desastre que tienen el propósito de aliviar la severidad y el sufrimiento causados por la emergencia en la población local y proporcionar la asistencia adecuada para las medidas de emergencia requeridas, a fin de salvar vidas, proteger la propiedad, seguridad y salud pública, y para minimizar o prevenir la amenaza de una catástrofe en el condado Hinds.
De manera específica, FEMA tiene la autorización para identificar, movilizar y proporcionar a su discreción los equipos y recursos necesarios para disminuir los efectos de la emergencia. Las medidas de protección de emergencia, incluida la asistencia federal directa como parte del programa de Asistencia Pública, se proporcionarán durante un período de 90 días.
Allan Jarvis ha sido nombrado Coordinador Federal a cargo de las operaciones federales de respuesta en el área afectada.
