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Slack.com slash DHQ. Nick Juden has lived in Jackson, Mississippi for nearly his whole

life. So since forever, he's known the rule of thumb around here. Don't trust the water.

What comes out of the tap is likely to have lead in it. And when the power goes out, the

water is likely to shut off too. I've been drinking the water in Jackson for parts

of my life these days, I tend to use bottled water. It's that bad? Yeah, I mean, it's never

been like this. This is definitely new. When Nick says it's never been like this, what

he means is that for the last month or so, thousands of Jackson residents simply haven't

had water, not safe water, not reliable water. After winter storms knocked out electricity

here, same way they did throughout the south, it wreaked havoc. And in Jackson, the havoc

lasted for weeks. I think pretty much everyone in Jackson, Mississippi,

knows when there's a freeze coming, fill up your tub. And that's really just in case. And

I don't think even a tub would have been enough for these two freezes and what they did

to the water system as a whole. But this is something that we do live with.

Nick's a reporter now works at the Mississippi Free Press. He spent a lot of time talking

to his neighbors about how they've been getting by. Says during this water crisis, he found

there were two kinds of people. First, there were people like him. People whose lives were

disrupted. To be disrupted is to have every part of your life get just a little bit harder,

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