Mississippi sheriff’s offices receive thousands of donated water bottles to send to Jackson as water crisis continues

VARDAMAN, Miss. (WCBI) – Water donations for Jackson are pouring into sheriff’s offices across the state after a call to action by Calhoun County Sheriff Greg Pollan, president of the Mississippi Sheriff’s Association.

“The Vardaman Fire Department, Mounce Supermarket (are assisting), TNT in Bruce gave a pallet, Tedford’s True Value in Bruce gave a pallet,” Sheriff Pollan says.

The Calhoun County sheriff says it was Wednesday, one day after Governor Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency over Jackson’s water crisis, when he got an email from Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones.

“What the email said was, ‘This is going to be long and drawn out and we need help,'” Sheriff Pollan says.

So as head of the Mississippi Sheriff’s Association, he called on his fellow sheriffs to collect as much clean water for Hinds County as possible.

“In the email I said this is not political. This is showing the state what the sheriffs can do,” Sheriff Pollan explained. “Let’s show this state that the sheriffs are leaders.”

The Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office picked up two more pallets of water on Friday, which contain a total of 3,840 bottles of water.

“Right now, I’m at approximately 7,500 bottles of water,” Sheriff Pollan says. “This puts me way over my original goal when we load this pallet of water up. I was hoping to get 5,000 bottles.”

And that’s just the donations in his jurisdiction.

“We are asking citizens of Lowndes County if they would like to contribute to this program,” Lowndes County Sheriff Eddie Hawkins said Thursday. “They can come by the sheriff’s department and drop off a case of water here.”

Sheriff Hawkins says they have gathered about 50 cases of water so far and says that several churches and community groups have pledged over 1,000 more. The Clay County Sheriff’s Office says they received lots of those calls as well.

“The people in Jackson, through no fault of their own, are in a real, real bad spot,” says Clay County Major Stephen Young. “It’s just kind of the Mississippi way to help out your neighbors.”

Oktibbeha County Sheriff Steve Gladney says that, as of Thursday, they had 17 to 18 cases of water.

“Now I’ve got to start trying to figure out how to haul all this water because it has grown way bigger than I thought it was going to be,” Sheriff Pollan says. “I thought it might be a couple of truckloads, maybe three truckloads. But it’s going to be way more than that. We’re going to have to (bring in) big trucks and trailers (to ship it all), but I’ve already made a phone call about that.”

All sheriff’s offices will continue collecting donations until September 9th, when they will deliver the cases of water to the fairgrounds in Jackson for the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office to distribute.

Sealed water bottles can be dropped off at one’s local sheriff’s office any time during normal business hours.