JASPER, Tenn. – A mishap with the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s project to connect State Highways 150 and 28 and a lack of communication about the problem aggravated some local church members last weekend.
George Jackson, treasurer at McKendree United Methodist Church, said the facility didn’t have any water over the weekend and church leaders were not told until Sunday morning.
Jackson said the church could have been hosting a wedding or a funeral on Saturday, and those events would have been ruined without some communication from city leaders.
The start of the church’s Vacation Bible School had to be postponed and an Alcoholics Anonymous district meeting was canceled without much advance notice.
“We would like to have had a little warning so that we could call people and let them know the church would not be available,” Jackson said. “We understand things like that happen. The thing that irritated us was the fact that nobody at the church was aware that the water was being turned off. We didn’t have enough time to get things rescheduled. That’s what irritated us. The fact there was no communication to us.”