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Thousands of residents in Jackson, the state’s largest city, are still without running water Monday after last week’s historic winter storm disrupted the city’s aging infrastructure.

A majority of residents in south Jackson and parts of west Jackson have no water service at all, and most of the city’s entire population has low water pressure. City officials have given no official timeline for service restoration, but they said on Monday they think most of the city will have running water by midweek.

“We have to have a lot of things that go perfectly over the next couple of days,” Charles Williams, Jackson’s public works director, said on Monday. “We know we’re gonna have a couple of setbacks, but that’s what we are aiming for.”

A historic winter storm slammed the state last week, freezing and bursting many water pipes in the capital city. Jackson residents have flocked to grocery stores, making bottled water extremely difficult to come by in the metro area. Hundreds of residents have lined up at the city’s water giveaway sites, and several churches and volunteer groups have mobilized efforts to distribute water to those in need.

The first hurdle the city faced in restoring water service was restoring water pressure to the system. The pressure, which should be 80 pounds per square inch (PSI) or higher at the city’s water treatment plants, sunk to 37 PSI last Wednesday. As of Monday afternoon, pressure had been restored to 67 PSI.

When the city’s water pressure collapsed last week due to the winter storm, iced-in residents depleted the city’s water reserves, which created a cascading line of service failures. The icy roads also delayed the transportation of chemicals to treat the city’s water.

Another challenge in restoring water service will be a surge in water line breaks that is likely to occur as water pressure returns. The city has reported 25 water line breaks since last week and had repaired six of them by Monday afternoon.

In an effort to streamline the recovery and repair process going forward, the Jackson City Council voted on Monday to declare a state of local emergency. This will allow Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba to hire contractors for repairs and other services without receiving multiple bids for them.

Williams said that the maintenance crews currently repairing water main lines can handle the level of demand they’re experiencing, but that additional contractors may have to be hired if the city sees its larger water lines begin to burst with the return of pressure. Residents are asked to call 311 if they see any burst lines.

During a press conference on Monday, Lumumba acknowledged that Jackson’s water system, with its decades-old pipes and lines, are in desperate need of repair, and estimated upgrades would cost around $2 billion.

“We are long overdue for a major investment from the federal government towards city infrastructures,” Lumumba said. “We have aged infrastructure that cannot be replaced in one calendar year, it can’t be replaced, you know, even over the course of four years. It takes a lot to make such a significant investment.”

The city is continuing to distribute non-potable (flushing) water to residents. Many resorted to collecting large amounts of snow from the streets last week and melting it down just to flush their toilets. Jackson residents can bring containers to the following locations until Monday night to receive non-potable water:

• Forest Hill High School – 2607 Raymond Road, Jackson, MS 39212
• Raines Elementary School – 156 N Flag Chapel Road, Jackson, MS 39209

Residents can also call these numbers to report non-emergencies relating to water service disruptions:

• 601-960-1111
• 601-960-1777
• 601-960-1781
• 601-960-1778
• 601-960-0379
• 601-960-1779

The post Thousands in Jackson, the state’s largest city, are still without water following historic winter storm appeared first on Mississippi Today.

READ: Thousands in Jackson, the state’s largest city, are still without water following historic winter storm

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In this week’s episode of The Other Side, Mississippi Today journalists Bobby Harrison and Adam Ganucheau break down two key transportation funding bills, including the eyebrow-raising proposal to let Mississippi voters decide whether to raise the state’s gasoline tax.

Listen here:

The post Podcast: Could Mississippi finally raise its gas tax? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Deion Sanders got his first head coaching victory Sunday, and that was just for starters. He also got an icy Gatorade bath. He was presented a trophy on the field, and then his players awarded him the game ball in the locker room — “one of the best moments of my professional sports career,” he would call the game ball presentation.

You’d think he’d would have been smiling from ear to ear in his first postgame press conference as head football coach at Jackson State.

He was not.

“I’m pissed. I’ve got mixed emotions,” Sanders said, and then he said a whole lot more.

He said he had been robbed, that someone had stolen his belongings out of the coaches’ dressing room while the game — a 53-0 JSU victory over Edward Waters College — was being played. He said somebody had pilfered his wallet, credit cards, cell phone and watches. “Thank God I had on my necklaces,” he said.

“So when I talk about raising the quality and raising the standards, that goes for everyone, not just the people on the field, not just the coaches, not just the teachers, not just the faculty — everybody, security and everybody.”

Just a few minutes later came the remarkable news that Sanders had not been robbed after all. His belongings had been moved for safekeeping. They were back in his possession.

So file this one under the category: All’s well that ends well…

Unless, that is, you are the Edward Waters College Tigers, a Division II school from Jacksonville, Fla. For Edward Waters, things did not begin well, proceed well or end well. And when it did mercifully end, the losers faced a nine-hour bus ride back to the east coast of Florida.

So, what to make of the coaching debut of Sanders, a Pro Football Hall of Famer and a neophyte college head coach?

It’s hard to say. The talent differential between the two sets of Tigers was almost like men and boys. Edward Waters had won eight games and lost 35 over the last four seasons. They were playing a long way from home and decidedly out of their class.

Never mind Sanders’ Tigers were playing without many of their most highly touted recruits and transfers who won’t be eligible until the fall. The Mississippi Tigers were bigger, better and faster at virtually all positions. They took command from the outset.

The visitors’ return man was savaged at his own 19-yard line on the opening kickoff. A first down pass fluttered like a winged duck, landing nowhere near a human being. A second down run gained three yards. A third down pass was dropped by an JSU defender. And then came an 18-yard punt. And so it went…

A Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium announced crowd of 11,000, including Sanders’ former Dallas Cowboys teammate Troy Aikman, applauded politely as JSU, breaking from tradition with bright red jerseys and trousers, rolled up the score, 17-0 after one quarter, 31-0 at half.

All in all, the game had the feel of a spring football game, which, come to think of it, it was — except that it counts in the record books. COVID-19 wiped out the 2020 SWAC fall football season. Some SWAC teams, such as Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State are playing abbreviated spring schedules. Others, such as Alcorn State, will wait until the fall. Jackson State and MVSU will play at The Vet Saturday for the second of the Tigers’ seven-game spring schedule.

We’ll know a little more Jackson State after that one — and a lot more after Sanders takes his team to Grambling State on March 6.

For now, all we know for sure is that Jackson State is infinitely better than Edward Waters and that Coach Prime, 1-0, got his valuables back to go with his game ball. Then, perhaps, he was able to smile.

The post Coach Prime got a Gatorade bath, a game ball — and, he got his stuff back appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Jackson State University’s first-year head coach Deion Sanders led his Tigers to a resounding 53-0 victory over the Edward Waters College Tigers on Sunday at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson.

Jackson State’s season is being played this spring after the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) postponed its 2020 fall season due to COVID-19.

The post Photos: Jackson State routs Edward Waters College in Deion Sanders’ coaching debut appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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When former Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. was weighing a run for governor in 2019, research was done on whether he could conduct a viable campaign as an independent.

Waller, of course, opted to run as a Republican and later lost a runoff election in the primary to then-Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, who had a massive campaign war chest and was viewed as the heavy favorite.

At the time, Waller and others feared that an independent — even a former Supreme Court justice — would not be taken seriously in Mississippi, where there is not much history of viable third-party candidates. And perhaps more importantly, Waller would face a near impossible political task because of provisions in the Mississippi Constitution. Those provisions dictated that if no candidate in a statewide election garnered both a majority of the popular vote and a majority vote in the state’s 122 House districts, the House of Representatives would vote to decide the winner.

The thought was that even if Waller could be in the top two in an election that was thrown to the House, there was no way he could prevail, especially if the other candidate was the Republican Reeves. No doubt, as has been well documented, Reeves is far from popular with House members thanks in part to his time as lieutenant governor, where he presided over the Senate and was often at odds with House leaders. Still, members of the three-fifths Republican majority in the House would have faced tremendous pressure from party leadership to vote for their fellow Republican Reeves.

But things are different now. Elections can no longer go to the House after 75% of Mississippians voted in November to remove those provisions from the state Constitution. Now, if no candidate obtains a majority of the vote, there is a runoff for voters to decide between the top two vote-getters.

Would Waller have opted to run as an independent if that provision already had been removed before the 2019 election? Probably not. But it is interesting to look ahead to whether an independent could one day be a viable candidate in the current political environment.

There is growing talk from some national Republicans, who are not enamored with the leadership of former President Donald Trump or the prominent party leaders who support him, of forming a third party. A Gallup poll released last week found that a record 62% of Americans support forming a third party because the two major parties “do such a poor job representing the American people.”

Would Reeves have won in 2019 had Waller run as an independent? Probably. But it is not such a stretch to see a scenario where the outcome would have been in question in a three-way November general election with Republican Reeves, independent Waller and Democrat Jim Hood on the ballot.

It is safe to assume no candidate would have garnered a majority. Who would have won the runoff? We will never know for sure.

Perhaps someone in the future — a businessperson with no background in politics — could wage a successful third-party campaign.

After all, that there is at least one example of a third-party candidate impacting a Mississippi election. The constitutional provisions throwing statewide elections to the House applied only to the eight state offices — not the U.S. Senate posts. In 1978, Thad Cochran became the first Republican elected to statewide office in Mississippi since the 1800s when he won a U.S. Senate seat. Many believe Cochran, who served until 2018, won that historic election because Charles Evers, brother of Civil Rights icon Medgar Evers, ran as an independent and is generally believed to have siphoned the majority of his votes from Democrat Maurice Danton. Cochran won that election with 45% of the vote.

When Reeves was asked last year about the proposal to eliminate the provisions that had the potential of throwing statewide elections to the House, he responded in partisan terms.

“If this provision passes at this point, it is going to make it harder for Republicans to get elected,” the first-term governor said.

The governor did not talk about the need to remove the provision because it was placed in the 1890 Constitution as a safeguard to prevent African Americans, then a majority in Mississippi, from being elected to statewide office. He did not say the provision needed to be removed so that Mississippi could join the rest of the nation — with the exception of Vermont — by specifying the candidate with the most votes in the statewide races would be declared the winner. Instead, the governor spoke of the potential of the change hurting state Republicans and blamed Democrats in 1890 for originally putting the language in the Constitution.

Perhaps somewhere down the line, removing that provision does not help a Republican or a Democrat, but an independent.

The post Could Mississippi constitutional change pave the way for winning independents? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

I am a road warrior. In the nearly quarter of a century I’ve lived in Mississippi, I’ve spoken in towns from Tunica to Ocean Springs to Natchez to Corinth. And when I hit the road, I am grateful for Mississippi’s roads. Most are in pretty decent shape. The 1987 Highway Program (which has four-lanes so many of our main roads) was nothing short of a Godsend — anyone who remembers being caught behind a long truck on Hwy 25 near Noxapater or trying to pass on Bloody 98 on the way to Mobile would agree.

But wear and tear and increased pavement costs are taking their toll.

I am also not a huge fan of taxes. But a gas tax — a few pennies for specific road projects and to help with repaving efforts — is something I can get behind. It’s a use tax. And not only would it be Mississippi folks like me paying for the upgrade of our highways, it would be the thousands of out-of-state travelers who use our roads as they head through Mississippi. A few pennies per gallon is cheaper than a new front end or a new rim from hitting a pothole.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Road Tax appeared first on Mississippi Today.

When Gov. Tate Reeves issued a state of emergency on Mar. 14, 2020, Mississippi had only six confirmed cases of COVID-19. In an effort to prevent the deadly virus from spreading quickly in the state, as it was doing across the country and world, the governor asked Mississippi churches to cancel services.

Nearly a year later, with 289,892 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 6,534 deaths caused by the virus in Mississippi, many churches have still not joined together in person to worship, including Spring Hill North Missionary Baptist Church in Water Valley.

The small Yalobusha County church serves a congregation that is mostly Black and mostly elderly, two of the most impacted demographics in the coronavirus pandemic. Since March 2020, the church has held services virtually in order to keep the congregation safe, utilizing social media.

“All of our churches have been affected by COVID-19,” Sammy Townes, pastor of Spring Hill North M.B. Church, said in a 2020 documentary interview.

Townes, who has been pastor of the church for 31 years, said it took some time to figure out how to transition from in-person services to online services when the governor initially asked churches to cease in-person services.

The new, pandemic-proof flow for the virtual services included the pastor, musicians and praise team members socially distanced and on site at the church for weekly Facebook Live church services.

“We just wanted to stay visible in the life of the members in the community and to keep them edified and built up during this difficult time,” Townes said. “In the church, people are so used to fellowshipping and hugging. Not being able to do all that has kind of taken away some of the closeness from that aspect of the church, but it has also made us realize how important the things we have taken for granted (for) so many years.”

Although churches are primarily places of worship, these sacred spaces play a multifaceted role in the lives of Black Mississippians, especially in rural communities where resources are scarce. Here in the Bible Belt, Black churches not only provide a space for people worship and praise, but they also serve as a hub for community-building and organizing, creating a safe space for Black people to connect with one another.

Today, there are over 50 churches in Yalobusha County, many of them home to predominantly Black congregations. On any given day when riding down Water Valley’s Main Street, church steeples are towering, visible in almost every direction. Spring Hill North M.B. Church is right off of the town’s main avenue on a small side road named Railroad Avenue.

The church stands in an open field, across from a busy lumber yard and a Black-owned funeral home, part of the remaining legacy of what used to be known as “The Block,” or the portion of Railroad Avenue that was home to Black-owned businesses, stores and restaurants during Jim Crow segregation.

“The Block was the happenin’ strip,” Water Valley native James Wright recalled in a 2019 oral history interview. “I never knew what was on The Block until I got to be a teenager…I was like 15, 16 years old, and I was actually working.”

When the town integrated, many of businesses could no longer afford to stay afloat and have long since closed. Despite this, Spring Hill North M.B. Church and many other Black churches in Yalobusha County stand strong in their legacy and connection to the Black community.

Wright, 60, said the church played an instrumental role in his life growing, leading him to become an ordained deacon at Bayson Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in town.

“Religion has shaped my life. It actually is what I am today,” Wright said. “At (Bayson Chapel M.B. Church), I wear a lot of hats. I do a lot of things simply because I believe that what I do for Christ will last.”

Townes, the pastor at Spring Hill North, also said religion was one of the most important and memorable aspects of his life as a child.

“Growing up as a boy, our family was always in church. You were not asked ‘do you want to go to church?’ You were told you were going to go to church,” he said with a smile. “As I grew older, (church) began to take on a different meaning to me. Instead of me just being in church, church became a part of me.”

On Election Day 2020, Townes provided free rides to the polls for members of his congregation and for people in the larger Yalobusha County community. Last summer, he organized a food drive for people in the community.

For him, these acts are just a larger reflection of the role of churches in communities in today’s society.

“We have to be cognizant of the fact that we have problems. We have issues, and we have to face those issues head on. We’re living in a time now where we’re still experiencing some racial disparity,” Townes said. “As the people during Biblical times were encouraged by the word of God through the manner of God, I feel as a man of God today, I have to encourage the people.”

Editor’s note: A full archive of photos and additional oral history interviews, like the ones mentioned in this article, are available online in The Black Families of Yalobusha County Oral History Project Archive, which emerged after Dottie Chapman Reed, Water Valley native, and author of the column “Outstanding Black Women of Yalobusha County” in the North Mississippi Herald, and Jessica Wilkerson, a former history and Southern Studies professor at the University of Mississippi, collaborated. In the spring 2020, Dr. B. Brian Foster, a sociology and Southern Studies professor at the University of Mississippi, took over as director of the project and will collaborate with UM students and Reed on its expansion in the next phase of the project known as the Mississippi Hill Country Oral History Collective.

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