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MFP Voices

Crisis Reporting: Covering a Systemic Water Failure and a Blame Game In Our Home State

Pipes froze and burst all over the city starting Feb. 15. We got hit with another set of freezing temps on Feb. 17. The crisis escalated quickly. Most of Jackson either lost water pressure or had no water at all for days. The City issued a boil-water notice on Feb. 18. That notice lasted until March 10. Jackson had no drinkable water for 24 days. Read that again. The capital city in a first-world country had no drinking water for 24 days.  

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Tamiko Smith sitting with dialysis bag
In-Depth

Under the Surface, Part 1: Jackson Residents Struggle from Neglected Water System

What does it mean to be without water? It is innumerable small humiliations: the splash of a toilet flushed with a bucket, days on end without a shower, no clean clothes. It is weeks without a cooked meal, a sink full of unclean dishes, brushing one’s teeth with water from a bottle, if a bottle can be found. For Tamiko and Otis Smith and many others, it is something far more dangerous. 

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