The crisis began a few weeks ago when the Pearl River in Jackson, Mississippi flooded because of major rainstorms in the area. The flooding forced the city’s largest water treatment plant to stop the treatment of drinking water indefinitely. This left the residents of Jackson with no access to safe water to drink.
The city was placed under a “boil water” advisory, meaning that the water coming out of faucets must be boiled prior to use for drinking, cooking, ice making, dish washing or teeth brushing. There were reports of “dark brown water” coming out of the faucets of residents.
Even more problematic was the fact that the failure of one of the two water treatment plants because of the flooding of the Pearl River severely affected the water pressure. This caused many homes had toilets that were unable to be flushed.
Into that gap stepped a number of SDA entities, included the Office for Regional Conference Ministries. It coordinated with the local SDA Churches in Jackson to purchase pallets of water that were distributed to local church members and members of the Jackson community.
Below are pictures of that distribution:
Let us pray for our brothers and sisters in Jackson, Mississippi. Those that ORCM spoke to there are in amazingly good spirits-more interested in helping their less fortunate fellow-citizens than being worried about themselves.
And perhaps we need to be praying for ourselves. Many of the problems in Jackson-aging water treatment facilities without the financial resources to fix them-are problems common to many other cities. Jackson, Mississippi could just be the first wave of cities with similar problems.
“Even so, come Lord Jesus”-the Water of Life.