In recent years, Jackson, Mississippi, has grappled with crisis after crisis with its water infrastructure. Historic flooding in late summer and freezing temperatures in December damaged the city’s water distribution system, leaving many residents without running water or under boil-water notices for weeks at a time.

The Justice Department appointed a third-party manager in November to fix the ailing system and manage some of the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding earmarked to address the crisis. Ted Henifin spoke to “GMA3” hosts DeMarco Morgan and Stephanie Ramos about why the problem has gone on for so long and how the city plans to solve it.

STEPHANIE RAMOS: Ted, thank you so much for being with us. Right off the bat, can you explain what your position is?

TED HENIFIN: Yeah, it's a tough one to explain. So the Department of Justice and EPA came to town and negotiated a deal with the city and the state Department of Health to create basically a third party to manage the system. And so that was presented to the court at the end of November. And the judge entered that order, effectively appointing me as this interim third-party manager. So I'm an officer of the court working here for the good of the citizens of Jackson.