Infrastructure is the collapse indicator no one is talking about

When governments fail, local communities can — and must — step in to stave off disaster.

Raw sewage bubbles up in a front yard in Jackson, Mississippi.

Crumbling infrastructure has long served as a signal that a society is unraveling. The slow, steady erosion of the very systems that hold a civilization together — roads, water, power, communications — is a warning and a catalyst for total breakdown. When these systems falter, they signal deeper rot. And left unchecked, that rot spreads, accelerating collapse.

Take Jackson, Mississippi, as an example. An ongoing water crisis there is not just a local, underreported tragedy — it’s a microcosm of nationwide decay, a warning for all of us all about what could be coming. This is what systemic collapse looks like in real time.

In August 2022, Jackson’s water system caved under the pressure of severe flooding. More than 150,000 people were left without clean drinking water for many weeks. The extreme flooding dealt the final blow, but the real culprit was decades of neglect. The city’s water infrastructure, built on a century-old system of corroding pipes, had been rotting for years.

A decade earlier, the EPA had slapped Jackson with a federal consent decree, citing 2,300 illegal sewer overflows over five years. In 2013, a master plan highlighted the full scale of the problem: over 100 miles of decaying cast-iron pipes, some from the early 1900s, all but useless. The repair bill amounted to a staggering $600 million — money the city just didn’t have.

This wasn’t just a random failure; it was a culmination of years of mismanagement, underfunding, and political dysfunction. And despite federal oversight, the crisis grinds on to this day. Even after the Biden administration allocated the necessary funds, quibbles between various levels of government have stalled any meaningful action. Boil-water notices remain routine and Jackson’s residents endure tap water that comes out brown, murky, and unreliable.

Investigators said support plates about half as thick as they should have been caused the I-35W bridge collapse over the Mississippi River in August 2007.

Jackson is far from alone in its misery. It’s just one glaring example in a country plagued by decaying infrastructure. A 2021 report from the American Society of Civil Engineers paints a bleak picture: nationwide, a water main bursts every two minutes, spilling 6 billion gallons of treated water every day. Nearly half the country’s roads are in poor or mediocre condition. More than 30,000 miles of levees — critical flood defenses — are barely holding on.

ASCE’s 2021 report card handed out D-range grades in 11 out of 17 infrastructure categories. And the overall grade for the nation was a meagre C-. The next report, due out next week, is not likely to show much improvement unless there’s a seismic shift in funding and political will.

Zooming out, this isn’t just a story of busted pipes or crumbling roads. What matters is what those failing systems mean.

History shows us what happens when infrastructure collapses. The fall of the Roman empire was a slow unraveling, and crumbling infrastructure played a pivotal role. Aqueducts clogged with silt, roads fell into disrepair, and the empire’s reach outpaced its maintenance capacity. Rome’s infrastructure was designed for control and scale and funded by conquest and taxes. As these revenue streams dried up, so did maintenance. By the fifth century, when the Visigoths sacked Rome, they easily cut off the city’s water supply. The central government was so bogged down in bureaucracy and infighting it couldn’t respond. Meanwhile, local elites privately hoarded resources rather than banding together for a public response.

The Mayans also saw their sophisticated water systems and trade routes fail, collapsing under the strain of environmental stress and political fragmentation. These societies didn’t just watch their infrastructure fall apart — they saw their ability to maintain it wither, breaking down once-healthy lines of commerce, health, and social cohesion. When systems fail, collapse is on a fast track.

The situation is even more precarious today, as the globe is hyperconnected. A single failure — be it a blackout, a water shortage, a bridge collapse, or an internet outage like the one that struck the world last year — ripples outward at terrifying speed. Underlying all of it is a sneaking suspicion that these breakdowns are not accidental, but rather part of an intentional plan to purposefully bring the whole fragile system to its knees and usher in a new mechanism of control.

A man walks home with groceries in McKinney, Texas, after a major winter storm caused millions to lose power throughout Texas.

The US loses billions of dollars every year to infrastructure-related disasters. Nearly half of Americans say government should increase federal spending for roads, bridges, mass transit, and other infrastructure. Yet the political will to respond appears anemic. This would suggest we’re charging headfirst into collapse, refusing to heed the warnings history offers. But we don’t have to sit back and watch it happen. This is our wake-up call. The cavalry isn’t coming, so we the people must take control. We must rally our resources and rebuild from the ground up.

Just look at what happens when local initiatives fill the gap when governments can’t or won’t act:

• Formed in 2020, the Mississippi Rapid Response Coalition has been a crucial lifeline in addressing crises across Mississippi, particularly in places like Jackson, where government intervention has been inadequate at best. Comprising over 30 organizations, the Coalition has stepped in to distribute clean water during prolonged boil water alerts, directly addressing the needs of residents who were failed by the state’s lack of action.

• When the state and federal governments mishandled Flint, Michigan’s water crisis, some residents didn’t wait for help. Grassroots organizations organized water distributions, raised funds for filters, and pressured officials with protests and lawsuits. Local churches and nonprofits set up water stations and citizens crowdfunded pipe replacements.

• After levee failures decimated New Orleans and the federal government all but abandoned the city, locals took control. The Vietnamese community in New Orleans East, led by Father Vien Nguyen, rebuilt homes and churches in months using communal labor and donations. In the Lower Ninth Ward, groups like Common Ground Collective cleared debris and repaired infrastructure, filling gaps left by overwhelmed authorities.

• With Puerto Rico’s power grid obliterated after Hurricane Maria and federal aid slow to arrive, organizations like Casa Pueblo turned to solar power, distributing solar lanterns and setting up microgrids to power homes and clinics while the government grid remained dark for nearly a year. Elsewhere, residents used machetes to clear roads and rebuild bridges with local materials, demonstrating how self-reliance outpaces bureaucracy.

• In Kerala, India, when monsoon floods overwhelmed the government in 2018, coastal fishing communities launched a rescue flotilla, saving over 65,000 people. Known as the “Fishermen’s Army,” they navigated treacherous waters where official teams couldn’t reach. Locals also crowdfunded rebuilding efforts, repairing roads and homes faster than state aid could arrive.

• In Barnardsville, North Carolina, a small mountain hamlet hit by Hurricane Helene’s devastating flooding last year, over 50 homes were wiped out. Government aid was slow to arrive so residents and volunteers rallied together to construct tiny insulated homes and clear debris. Twila Little Brave, who lost everything, said the community-donated sheds and propane were life-saving. “We lost everything we had, but we’re really grateful to be alive,” she said. “We would not have survived without the community – it’s people helping people, not the government.”

These examples reveal a pattern: when governments fail to act swiftly — due to a lack of competence, funding, or will — communities step in with ingenuity and collective action. They don’t always solve the root problem (e.g., Flint’s pipes still need billions of dollars of repairs), but they buy time, save lives, and shift momentum.

Could local initiatives have turned the tide for Rome? Perhaps — if the will to maintain infrastructure had been distributed locally, with city-states working together to pool resources, things might have been different. Local infrastructure maintenance could have been decentralized and maintained at the neighborhood level. It’s not a cure-all, but a localized focus could have delayed Rome’s eventual fall.

As we watch America’s infrastructure crumble, it’s clear people must act at the local level before things become irreversible. Local communities, with grit and ingenuity, have always been the first to rise to the occasion. So, if collapse is truly coming to America, get to know your neighbors. Now!

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