After years of Jacksonians feeling out of the loop about whether they were under a boil water notice, one resident has started a new text service to try to better inform those affected.

Amit Patel, a consultant with a background in aerospace, moved to Jackson from Los Angeles four years ago. He soon encountered the alerts that are familiar to everyone in the city: boil water notices. Patel said he grew up in South Africa where he became familiar with similar infrastructure issues, and got used to the frequent water disruptions in Jackson. But what stood out to him, he said, was the lack of official communication.

“It was always odd to me that it was hard to find out when there was a boil water notice,” Patel said, adding that he’d usually find out about the notices through word of mouth. “I’ve never actually gotten an email, a physical notice. Maybe we got something in the mail, I can’t remember. But the timing of it would be such that the notice might even be over by the time we got notified.”

Patel, who recently left a Silicon Valley-based tech job, said he came up with the idea for a text service for Jackson’s boil water notices while having drinks with friends, before realizing that it might be something people want.

The service, he explained, compiles boil notices for Jackson that appear on the website for the Mississippi State Department of Health, which regulates drinking water in the state. People who are signed up then get a text message saying when the notice was issued, for which streets, and a link to the MSDH posting. To get notices, residents can text “join” to 833-366-2498, or visit his website for more information.

Patel said that 150 people signed up for the tool in the first three days after launching it.

Such notices have become extremely common for Jackson — which has issued over 400 of them since 2020 alone — and officials attribute them to the city’s aging, undersized water lines, which are susceptible to weather changes and soil movement.

Boil water notices alone don’t signify that the drinking water is unsafe. But because reduced pressure after a water line bursts can allow contamination, health officials recommend as a precaution to boil water for at least a minute before consuming, or being used to brush teeth or make baby formula. Full instructions for what to do during a notice are on the MSDH website.

JXN Water, which has been in charge of the system for the last year, issues the notices on its website as well as with notifications on Nextdoor, a neighborhood networking website.

Last Thursday, the company issued a boil water notice for 20 homes just south of Lake Hico. Some of the residents became aware there were issues when a crew arrived on Friday morning to make an emergency repair and, without notice, shut off their water. While the water came back on that same morning, residents told Mississippi Today they were unaware they were under a boil water notice.

“I didn’t know nothing about a boil water notice,” said Robert Moore, adding that he’s usually out of the loop when those notices are issued.

When asked about notifying residents, JXN Water Communications Manager Ameerah Palacios said that the company’s current system goes “above and beyond the standard protocol for Jackson.” Both Moore and Patel said that the lack of communication goes back to before JXN Water took over.

According to MSDH guidelines, if a boil notice is issued to only “a few” residents, the system should “notify (customers) by personal contact, door-hangers, or notes taped to their doors.” If it affects a large number of residents, it says to also alert local media.

Patel said that he’s grateful for the work JXN Water has been doing and that he hopes he can collaborate with them, adding that there’s room for improvement in the way the company notifies residents.

“I think that’s one flaw with the system,” he said. “If you don’t have a Nextdoor account, how do you get that information?”

Palacios declined to comment on Patel’s new service.

Other residents and local advocates raised similar concerns to U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, who is overseeing the role of JXN Water, back in September. In court filings, both Brooke Floyd and Danyelle Holmes — with the People’s Advocacy Institute and the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, respectively — wrote that Jackson residents were often unaware that their homes were under boil water notice.

“(Our) work to notify residents of boil water notices is necessary because the local, state, or federal government entities involved in the water crisis have not been providing consistent, adequate notice to residents,” Holmes wrote.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.