Jackson Jambalaya

The Bonsai doesn't have water while the Quarter does?

Several can be. Char was closed but Juleps was open.

Might tell you who cooks fresh and who cooks with frozen food or microwaves more.

One's better or more popular than the other? I haven't been in either in years so I don't get the point here. Is it the lack of water? A more important point is why did the "urban planner" in charge of Jackson not have a plan to replace water at Baptist Hospital? They are getting deliveries from UMMC and the VA, which had the foresight to use their own wells rather than rely on the city of Jackson's 100+ year old pipes.

KF - I don't if it's right to speculate about fresh vs frozen/microwave in these circumstances. I'm pretty sure if they don't have running water the DOH forces them to shut down (no working toilets, etc - a major health hazard).

Quarter doesn't have water either.

In other words, ewwwwwwwwwwwww.

Actually Baptist is getting water from fire hydrants. Fire trucks are at fire hydrant in front of where i live, filling up, going to hospital, coming back, and then going back to l'hopital.

That sounds about as clean as scooping it from puddles in the street ;-)

You are CLUELESS if you believe that Jackson has been replacing the old water lines at a sufficient rate.

Hopefully the money that SHOULD have been spent on regular maintenance and upkeep bought decent crack and high priced hookers. I'd hate to think they'd spent it on cheap crack and hookers.

St. Andrew's announced they are closing their lower school campus on Old Canton until TUESDAY JANUARY 19TH. Per their Headmaster "All indications are that this water crisis will not be quickly resolved.".

Meanwhile over at the JFP the same amateurs who are boldly predicting that the Town Creek watershed will not see rain during a '79 level flood event on the Pearl and thus will be safely contained behind the levee flood gates (and not flood downtown) can't seem to get their little progressive brains around the fact that Jackson has fallen apart at the seams the result of only twenty-five year scale bout of cold weather.

Millsaps, too, is closed until the 19th. This is a debacle and a disgrace. The Governor needs to get some National Guard engineer companies in here.

I don't remember 1989 being this bad.

I, for one, am thankful so many other cities are lending a helping hand. That is the Mississippi spirit! But, at the same time, if Jackson is so flat broke that Harvey can't afford to use private contractors to get the city back online in days versus more than a week then the state of Jackson's budget deficiencies are way, way beyond a level of crisis.

Caroline

AT work today, we we're wondering if the couldn't use an insituform type liner in these pipes. This might only be a stop gap measure until a major infrastructure overhaul of the water system is completed although I can't see the City of Jackson ever doing that. They can't even patch potholes but they are very good at naming bridges for people.

I'd love to see the maintenance budget for muni water over the past 35 years. Year per year. Vs. Mayor and council.

Just sayin...

(and no, '89 wasn't nearly this bad. '89 had water issues because the intake at the reservoir literally froze up. It got down to FOUR degrees and stayed below freezing at least as long as this go 'round). Don't remember anything like hundreds of water mains broken then.

Course, 'Hope and Change' weren't in charge in '89.

Maybe the city should name some of the potholes since many of them are permanent.

Like at New Stage?

My recollection could be off but I remember on Xmas Eve 1989 it got down to 6. That was brutal. Our gas heater only stopped running in 30-60 second increments. I remember that Asaf was out of his mind when it was going down.

Rez froze completely across and stayed that way. I remember my tape player in my car not working until the car would warm up sufficiently and I don't mean first thing in the morning but if it just sat cold for a couple of hours.

I do remember '89 being pretty rough. I think we didn't have water OR power? right? I just remember having to stay in the RV in the driveway for about a week and listening to Def Leppard lol.

But I'd say this go around is pretty bad, too. I just can't get over the idiots ("thousands" of them apparently?) who waited in line for HOURS for 4 dollars worth of free water. And probably left an hourly paying job just to do so because it was free. FOUR dollars worth of water and wait in line from noon 'til three?? I found plenty of water out and about today, you mean people wouldn't pay 5bucks or so to get some dang water on their own..? crazy.

Get ready. Ol' Donner Kay is gearing up to blame the broken water pipes on white flight. You know the score. What good is a Jackson crisis to Donna Ladd, or any crisis in the South, without a race card to play?

I doubt it, she's bored right now.

It's been nearly 20 years since whitey was in charge. They'll definitely find some way to blame whitey. Wait for it.

And while I'm on it, you know what else chaps my ass? I've got a $1400 car tag, but I'm driving to my parent's in Rankin County to take a damn shower.

Due to the state of emergency in Jackson resulting from citywide broken water lines, Jackson State University will remain closed until Tuesday, Jan. 19.

Thank you Harvey Nagin.

That doesn't make sense. The only way fewer people are tuning her out is if fewer people are reading the JFP each day. I could buy that. Otherwise you must mean more and more people are tuning her out. I could buy that too.

She can't move the needle on local elections. That much we know. But neither can Alan Lange.

Scott you're missing the point.

Anybody know if they have water pressure over on Oak Ridge in Fondren?

What is on Oak Ridge?

It's official, this town has turned into a SHIThole.

Bet Frank is laughing his ass off right now.

The same water lines are now 21 years older than they were in 1989. Just like the same water lines will be 31 years old in 2020

Shreveport having the same problem

Tulsa

Donaldsonville, La

Alabama

and so on.

I think Oak Ridge is a street. One block west of Crane.

Geez, its not crime that's a problem, its the rich, its the drunk drivers, its the substance abusers, its...its...its the freaking old water lines that's gonna bring down Jackson....no way. Never would have thought that the infrastructure that underlies the decay downtown that would bring it down, down, down, down, down.

Fish-We moved to Fondren two weeks ago (needed a bigger house). I'm kinda of glad because for some reason we have managed to keep water through this whole debacle. If we were still living on "our" old street...I don't think we'd have water. And that would totally suck with a six-month-old. They dug up in front of your house yet? They JUST fixed that line not a month ago. Remember? They spent two days right off our front porch digging up the street and we didn't have water.

We have OPEN and LONG RUNNING JOKES about the Jackson Public Works Department at my house. This whole thing does not surprise me. What surprises me is that other people are surprised.

But, I still love this town. :)

Atlanta, Knoxville and Chattanooga are having the same problem as well.

Wonder why people who live in colder climates where these temperatures aren't unusual don't regularly have this problem...
Could it be HOW they were built to start?

8:20- it is a number of factors. in Denver, the system is pretty old, but most of the old town is built on prairie and the soils are expansive. that's factor one.

factor two is that in colder climates, the materials used even a long time ago were heavier duty, were buried deeper, and were "game planned" to resist freezing temps which are more prevalent.


here, we don't have this type of freeze very often. and, we have super expansive soils. and, the oldest areas of town have not been updated in a long time. so, tah dah.

i am not defending the mayor's office, but i think that this is a natural disaster for a southern town. if he hires a bunch of private firms, he has to then get moneys to cover that and takes flak for that. if he doesn't, he's not taking action. bad position.

btw, i live in belhaven and work in town, and have a kid in school. this week has sucked for me. i still don't believe that this is all the current mayor's fault, nor is it all a result of "20 years of neglect", like it seems the current meme is.

no city in america has had the foresight to replace 200 miles of old pipe just because.

uh, the soils are NOT expansive. my error.

Good ol' Chipper the Apologist. Are any of those cities completely shut down like Jackson has been the last couple days?

sorry 8:43 ... this is barely a 20-year weather event ... yes there has been a disaster of political cowardice by, at least, the last FOUR mayors played underground but this has NOT been due to some weather disaster.

I was just adding to the list that KF started, Mr. Anonymous.

@8:49, this is 8:43. I don't disagree with you completely.

Although, I do believe that the several contiguous hours of subfreezing temps are a significant factor that doesn't happen here in normal years. I think it is a 20-year weather event, since the last time we had this type of cold was in 1989.

I think that the city should be (and have been) methodically replacing 5-7% of the old pipes per year, thereby always being in some mode of update and getting the oldest parts taken care in a manner that is forward thinking. Because there has not been much replacement in that regard, I think you can say that there is a failure of the leadership.

The pipes in my NEJax neighborhood are only 41 years old. That is all, 41 years. They burst continually without and before this cold. City workers dutifully dispatch, sometimes after days, and patch the leak. They never replace sections of pipe unless the situation forces their hand. How long was the sewer pipe in front of JA not repaired? There is one 100' section of water main 1/4 mile from my house that has burst 7 times in the last year. Each time it is only patched. The total leaks this week have been approx 6 months worth of our normal neighborhood burst rate in one week. Pipes in other parts of the city also burst every day. It happens everywhere, everyday in every part of Jackson. The frequency is increasing just like our roads have been getting worse. I am 99.99% confident that if we could review the data that the volume of breaks has been trending up every year for at least the last 15 years and noticeably so for the past 6-7 years. Someone better wake up in a whole lot of hurry because this is not merely a problem of old pipes nor yazoo clay nor an unfortunate stretch of colder than normal temps. What we have underway is a complete and systemic breakdown of Jackson's water distribution system that is simply not being addressed at the level of urgency required to prevent an eventual and complete collapse. What if we had gone single digits like '89 as the NWS was predicting early on or worse? Is it going to take an Easter Flood type of catastrophe? Jackson got lucky. What we need now is for our city leadership to get their heads into the game and re-prioritize our budgetary spending back to taking care of what matters most.

Yes, Oakridge in Fondren definitely has water....what about it?

Chipper tried to peddle his throwaway factoids over at the JFP without context. He got caught. Yes Chip, tell us more.

Tell you more of what?

Between you and Kingfish Chipper I think you both need to be briefed on the distinctions between occurence+frequency and severity+magnitude+scale. SHEESH. I expect better of Kingfish. Chipper, admit it. Your a homer who will blindly accept any bullshit your fed.

Chip,

Did they shut down those cities you referred to?

The angry little man returns from the kitchen. 4:51 and 6:33 same sadsack.

This is what I found posted on JFP verbatim:

"Atlanta - 26 water main breaks as of yesterday
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/atlanta-ice-crews-struggle-272679.html

Knoxville - 49 water main breaks as of yesterday
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/jan/12/cold-takes-its-toll-on-pipes/

Chattanooga - "A water main burst Monday morning on Dallas Road. Officials say there have been so many breaks that even supervisors are out working on repair sites."
http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11803752

Dallas - 105 breaks as of yesterday
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-burstpipes_12met.ART.State.Edition2.4b9d1df.html

Given those facts, I would say it's not too unusual that Jackson had an outburst of breaks, but I do think that Jackson has suffered from it far worse than any other city."


Sounds like chip was just posting up some news articles that show that Jackson is not the only city with water main breaks. Are you just bored and this is all you could come up with to complain about this week? It sounds like you need to work a little harder if you want to keep up(down) your reputation.