The small town mayor and its citizens of Helena-West Helena are urging the governor of Arkansas to provide some type of assistance to help with their water crisis during these extreme summer temperatures.
The town located in east Central Arkansas has been without clean water for more than four weeks and under a boil water alert since the end of June. According to Mayor Christopher Franklin, the town’s infrastructure is over 60 years old and pipes have burst in various parts of the city. He is a native of Helena-West Helena and was elected mayor in January.
A main water line broke on June 25, and it caused the city’s computer operations that run the water plant to fail. It left the town without water for more than 20 hours with a high temperature of 97 on that day.
Helena-West Helena is about 70 miles from Memphis, and 75 percent of the 9,000 residents are Black.
The cautionary boil water alert was issued on June 30 as temperatures reached 100 degrees on June 30. The city had to keep the alert in place after the infrastructure still had leaks.
City officials told NBC News that the estimate to fix the infrastructure would cost anywhere between $1 million and $10 million. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued the town a $100,000 loan to help repair the primary water system.
Franklin and his staff said that is not nearly enough money. They also said that it did help get the water back on in the town, but the pressure is low, and more leaks are still developing throughout the water system.
In addition to reaching out to the governor for more aid, Franklin also reached out for federal assistance.
“In America, where people have the right to good, quality drinking water, the federal government should be running aid to provide that,” Franklin said to NBC News. “Instead, there’s no sense of urgency for us. I mean, why would it be? We’re Black. There’s no urgency until they want our vote. And that’s what’s…
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