Almost two weeks after the water pressure dropped in Jackson, Miss., things are slowly returning to normal.
The water crisis, moving in slow motion for decades thanks to the city's crumbling infrastructure, came to a head on August 30 when heavy rains caused the Pearl River to overflow its banks and cut service to the city’s main water treatment plant. Jackson was already under a boil-water advisory—now, many residents could not get anything from their tap, and location and luck played huge factors in who experienced the most impact.
For institutions of higher education in the area, this was yet another emergency to confront after two years spent managing a global pandemic, and some of those lessons would come in handy. When low water pressure meant no air conditioning, no working toilets and no water fountains in buildings on campus, virtual classrooms were ready and waiting.
Dr. John P. Anderson, interim dean and professor of law at Mississippi College.
Just a five-minute drive away, Mississippi College’s (MC) College of Law, its branch campus in Jackson, prepared for the worst but experienced a completely different outcome. As the water pressure dropped in the city, Dr. John P. Anderson, interim dean and professor of law at MC, said his building’s toilets and faucets stopped working on the fourth floor, then the third, then the second. Eventually, only the toilets and faucets on the first and basement floor were operational.
“We were just lucky to be closer to a source of [water] pressure. Some of the locations downtown were further down the line from the original source,” said Anderson.
Anderson said MC had ample warning that the Pearl River was going to flood, and the school prepared for students who might be displaced. Plans for alternative housing at MC’s main campus in nearby Clinton, Miss., were made, but never needed.
