Most of Jackson, Miss., is without water after ‘invisible leak’

Most of those who depend on the already-beleaguered water system of Jackson, Miss., have been without water since Christmas Eve — and officials can’t find the cause.

What was clear Tuesday evening was that the city had troubles with its water system well before below-freezing temperatures settled in last week. Then a leak somewhere in the system left most customers without access and with orders to boil their water.

The location of the leak “is totally invisible, it would appear, so we’re really struggling,” Ted Henifin told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

Henifin is the water expert whom the U.S. Justice Department appointed this fall to oversee improvements to Jackson’s water system after a systemic breakdown in 2021 and a treatment-plant failure in August left people without water for weeks at a time.

City officials had warned residents to prepare for the possibility that their water access would be interrupted, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (D) said Tuesday, but the damage was widespread.

“We are dealing with the worst-case scenario,” Lumumba said in a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

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