In Jackson, Mississippi—where magnolias bloom beside crumbling curbs and history clings to every brick—the water failed.
In late August 2022, after relentless rains swelled the Pearl River and flooded low-lying neighborhoods, the city’s aging infrastructure gave way. The O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant faltered. Faucets went dry. Water pressure vanished. Nearly 150,000 residents were left without reliable running water—not for hours, but for weeks.
These photographs trace the anatomy of that failure. Streets swallowed by floodwater become a prelude to collapse. Protesters raise their voices on the steps of the Capitol. Children sit in long car lines, waiting for bottled water. The National Guard hands out cloudy jugs labeled non-potable. A mother fills containers while cradling her baby. The mayor, his face carved by exhaustion, repeats updates to a weary city. The EPA Administrator tours the battered plant. The governor scowls under the spotlight of national attention.
But the story didn’t begin with a flood.
\For years, Jackson’s water system has been eroding—fractured by aging pipes, chronic disinvestment, and political neglect. Hundreds of boil-water notices. Thousands of line breaks. Residents—mostly Black, many living in poverty—learned long ago not to trust what flowed from their taps. This crisis wasn’t sudden. It was slow. Predictable. Preventable.
This is not only a story about broken pipes. It is a story about environmental racism, about what happens when cities are left behind. About the consequences of decisions deferred, of infrastructure ignored, of communities made invisible until catastrophe makes them impossible to ignore.
And still—Jackson endured. Neighbors shared. Churches opened doors. Local leaders pushed for federal help—funding now promised, but not yet fully delivered. Slowly, the water returned. But trust does not run so easily through rusted pipes.
These images are more than documentation. They are testimony—of a city brought to its knees, of the fault lines that cracked wide open, and of a people who refused to be washed away.