The governor of the US state of Mississippi declared a state of emergency on Tuesday as more than 160,000 residents scramble for fresh water in the capital city of Jackson.

“The city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets and to meet other critical needs,” Gov. Tate Reeves said at a news conference emphasizing the urgency of the crisis.

The governor said the failure of the city's water treatment system is the culmination of a longstanding deterioration in critical water infrastructure, combined with damage from this week's mass flooding.

“All of this was with the prayer that we would have more time before their system ran to failure,” said Reeves.

The water emergency has left most people without sanitary drinking water, or in some cases, no water at all.

“Do not drink the water,” stressed Reeves. “In too many cases, it is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes.”

Residents have been under a boil order for nearly a month, but the current water emergency goes beyond that, with state officials pleading with residents not to use the water for cooking or brushing their teeth because of fear the entire water supply could run out, leaving residents unable to flush their toilets.

“The water and sewer system serving 250,000 citizens of the State and numerous businesses is at the brink of collapsing,” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said in a statement. “We have grave concerns for citizens’ health and safety.”

The US National Guard is distributing drinking water to residents and the state is setting up a tanker system to provide water for fire trucks as Jackson loses the ability to access water from fire hydrants.

Emergency crews are working frantically to get the water treatment plant back online, a process that could take at least several days.

In the meantime, the governor said the city's 160,000-plus residents could be without safe water “for an unknown period of time.”

“We will do everything in our power to restore water pressure and gets water flowing back to the people of Jackson,” said Reeves. (Anadolu Agency)