Online rumors partially to blame for drop in water pressure in Mississippi capital, manager says

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Law enforcement agencies are investigating whether social media rumors about a potential water outage prompted people to quickly fill bathtubs with tap water in Mississippi’s capital during a cold snap and cause a drop in pressure that temporarily made faucets run dry for thousands of customers on the city’s long-troubled system.

JXN Water, the private corporation that has been under a federal order to run Jackson’s system since late 2022, said in a statement Friday that U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate authorized the release of information about the investigation and advised the corporation on what to communicate to the public.