Mississippi water is so dirty residents shower with their mouths shut | Hacker News Reader

Mississippi water is so dirty residents shower with their mouths shut

bbc.com

39 pointsal_mandi29 comments

The special cherry on top was the news there is a tanker full of fresh water parked in front of governors mansion. Dont worry about it, its not for the governor, its totally "on standby to assist the bank with water needs".

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/26900/fact-check-tanker...

The American south would be in 3rd world territory (in some regards it already is) if it wasn’t attached at the hip to california and new york.

"The south" is a big, diverse place. Some places definitely resemble the third world, west Virginia is a prominent example, although it's not part of the south proper. And cities like Memphis have some major problems that are commonly attributed to third world countries.

America by and large is a diverse place. There are parts of non southern states with third world tier problems. Both states you mention have problems of that caliber.

Most of the developed world resembles the third world once you leave the cities, some of it even in the cities. Its all just rural undeveloped land with thin little roads, most of which aren't in pristene condition.

I have been to 60 countries all over the world. You are factually incorrect. Exactly what part of japan, Norway or Australia resembles the third world?

I don't mean shitting in the streets. I mean that if you go to a town of 20 people, you're going to get one lane streets, potholes, people winning mayoral elections because their family voted, more pigs than people, lack of water treatment, etc. There are people in the far north of Norway that herd reindeer, live semi nomadically in yurts. This is not significantly different from how khazakh people live. Once you get rural, the distinction between first and third world becomes much much less evident.

Oh well that means a broken water system is a good look for the capital of a state!

On this site you're supposed to try to have substantiative discussion. Could you try?

And yet it's GDP per Capita is higher than that of the UK

The US does, Mississippi doesn’t. Mississippi has a GDP per capital of about $42,411 [0] while UK has $47,334 [1]. Those are both in current USD.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...

Those numbers are still remarkably similar.

Yep. Then you look at wealth distribution and it all makes sense.

Mississippi’s Gini coefficient is around .49, where the UK is around .34.

To be fair the UK (or rather England) isn't exactly an examplar when it comes to water quality.

https://news.sky.com/story/huge-increase-in-raw-sewage-relea...

Does that suggest that wealth in Mississippi is extremely concentrated near the top?

Yes. MS has the 4th worst balance of income/wealth in the US (which is already pretty unbalanced overall).

MS has wealth distribution similar to that of Zimbabwe and Rep of Congo, measured by Gini coefficient.

The government in Mississippi collects Billions in tax revenue and wastes it... like every government.

I don’t know about you but I don’t normally shower with my mouth open…

That's strange, I've lived here for 5+ years now, and I've never heard anyone my native spouse say anything of the sort, nor anyone else.

More outrage for the outrage throne!

You missed this announcement then:

“Please make sure in the shower that your mouth is not open,” Jim Craig, senior deputy and director of health protection at the Mississippi Department of Health...

Specifically for Jackson, where they have been having serious water problems for a month.

(This is not in the linked article, but in several others on the topic)

No, I did not miss that. If it's not in the linked article, the implication is that we all just know to shower with our mouth closed. 2.9 million people, vs 149k.

It's hyperbole, without the details.

By "miss" I wasn't implying you can't read or something, just that this national news item wasn't something you've seen yet. A common way to express that is "you missed it" or "i missed that".

Let me rephrase my first sentence:

You many not have seen this yet then...

[snip some unnecessarily stuff in light of edit below].

edit: I just realized and maybe you also hadn't seen yet, the linked article is a summary of a video story. Additionally, the summary has been updated to include more information specifying Jackson and the title has been updated since I first looked, I suspect there is much more info now than when you first looked..

I didn't miss it. I read about it on the 30th of Aug, on this article https://www.wsj.com/articles/jackson-miss-is-out-of-running-...?

It wasn't the only one I've read, either.

Are you not understanding that I live in Mississippi, and I resent the implication that an entire state just has filthy water, because of one city with an awfully young man at the helm?

I clearly was not. Why did you have to ask?

If even a small village in my country didn't have access to clean drinking water for more than a week I'd demand some unfortunate public official to commit seppuku. It's having standards.

"America's not the greatest country in the world anymore. But we could be..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2HKbygLjJs

It's because of massive flooding and a damaged treatment plant. The governor declared a state of emergency. 150k people have been under orders to boil app water since July 29th.

I just heard about it yesterday too.

Having lived in Europe, this feels exactly like the kind of reporting they love. “Did you hear what happened in the US?” Or “did you see what happened in the US?” It’s a big damned place and I only personally care about certain parts of it, so no, I probably didn’t.

I used to expect better out of the BBC…

The OP implies that this is common to everyone in the state, and I believe it to be nonsense. I know about what's going on in Jackson, but I can assure you, the issues with the Pearl River flooding a treatment plant are limited to the city of Jackson.

Where I live, they shut off the water if you don't pay your bill.

Jackson isn't handling things very well. The governor is kind of a turd. There's blame to go all around.

https://mississippitoday.org/2022/09/02/bennie-thompson-jack...

>The governor is kind of a turd.

So were the streets of San Francisco the last time I was there. Has gov Nonsense fixed that sanitary problem yet?

The supply chain problem is a time bomb for many water supplies across the country. Even basic maintenance / upgrades have major problems with getting parts. So don't just point fingers at the "hicks" and think your water supply is safe or will stay that way.