Vicksburg Fire Chief Charles Atkins said the city’s fire department is prepared to respond if an emergency occurs during the declared water emergency.

Atkins said if a fire occurs before the water treatment facility’s main line is repaired, restoring water service and pressure to the city, they “would make a stab at it for sure” with the water they currently have on hand.

“Right now, we have on hand the water we have in our tanks right now along with maybe some water trucks that the city water has already and what our volunteers have,” Atkins said.

The Warren County Fire Department is working to moving resources closer to the city and also providing water to Promise Hospital to keep the air conditioner running and the county jail to enable them to flush toilets.

“We are in the process of working this,” County fire coordinator Jerry Briggs said. “This is not the first time. We are moving apparatus closer into the city. As far as fire protection, they aren’t going to have an issue with water.

“I have three tankers and three pumpers moving closer to the city. We may actually have some in town, large capacity water.”

Briggs added that if additional resources are needed they will reach out to Culkin water.

“Right now, we have it on hand,” Briggs said. “After that, we are going to have to work a deal with Culkin Water or one of the outside water agencies about what we provide the city. Anything from Culkin water as far fire protection goes they are good with it. If we are doing it any other way, they’re going to have to worry about talking to the city, but fire protection we’re all in this together.”

Atkins said the possible shortage wouldn’t impact their response time to an emergency, but could hinder their ability to fight a fire if the water main is down for an extended amount of time.

“Right now the effect of the situation, if we were to have a fire we would need water to put it out,” he said. “That is our primary source of extinguishing fire.

“We are going to rely on what we have right now. If we need any other resources our EMA will talk to other EMA mangers and he can talk to the state if we need the state to come in.”