2.20.21- AP
As portions of Mississippi began thawing out Saturday after days of frigid weather, several areas of the state are still coping with the aftermath of back-to-back winter storms.
The city of Jackson urged residents to conserve any water they have.
“Conserving water will allow your fellow Jacksonians to get back online faster,” a city statement said. “Residents closer to the plants will see water pressure restored soonest.” The city gave no timeline for full restoration of water.
In Canton, Mayor William Truly told WLBT-TV that the city, roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Jackson, has been searching for water to distribute to residents, but all nearby stores had none. Many residents have been without water since Thursday.
Timothy Wright believes the city should have been better prepared.
“I understand that the weather was bad, and the city has problems with its pumps, but we got a lot of elderly people around here,” Wright told the station. “We got a lot of people with children. I’m sure that we got people with unknown problems that need this water. We are also going through a pandemic.”https://cb6415dc3ce84d26c91794f2e7f7d6bd.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Truly said he contacted the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, and authorities hope pallets of water will be available by Sunday.
Utility crews, meanwhile, were making progress in restoring power Saturday.
As of 11 a.m., there were some 34,000 Entergy customers without power, according to Entergy’s power outage map. Entergy services customers in 45 of Mississippi’s 82 counties.
Statewide, all utilities showed nearly 68,000 energy customers without power statewide, data from PowerOutage.US showed.
Most Entergy electricity customers in Mississippi should have services restored by the beginning of next week, Entergy Mississippi President and CEO Haley Fisackerly said Friday.