Snyder requests FEMA’s help with Flint water crisis

Rick Snyder (R) has called in the National Guard to help hand out bottled water in Flint, where risky lead levels have made municipal water unsafe to drink.

Kyaira Donald, 6, of Flint, gets her finger poked to test her blood for lead levels, while at Freeman Elementary School in Flint, Mich., Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016.

Only 2% of Flint’s population has been tested, even though state health officials urged children under the age of 6 to be checked. The event is being held at the GREIU Union Hall on Bridge Street from 7:30am to 4pm.

His executive order issued late this evening is meant to bolster outreach to Flint residents.

MI is accelerating efforts to help Flint citizens address a crisis caused when their water supply became contaminated with lead as a result of a cost-saving move to switch the city’s water source, Gov. Rick Snyder (R) said January 11. At the Monday news conference in Flint, Snyder pointed to the fact that after Dennis Muchmore, Snyder’s then chief of staff, raised concerns in a July email that Flint residents’ concerns about the safety of the drinking water were being “blown off” by the administration, officials at both the DEQ and the Department of Health and Human Services maintained there was not a problem. FEMA appointed a disaster recovery coordinator to assist, spokesman Rafael Lemaitre said. “In terms of saying, here’s an opportunity for filters, bottled water, testing and ways to help them out”.

They hope to get to 500 to 600 houses a day, Genesee County sheriff’s Capt. Casey Tafoya said.

State troopers and sheriff’s deputies began escorting eight teams Tuesday morning, trudging through 3 inches of snow.

For months, water drawn from the Flint River leached lead from old plumbing into homes after the city switched its drinking water in 2014 from Detroit’s system to save money. Lead can cause permanent brain damage in children. “At the same time, I know for sure they were getting bad information from the City of Flint and (former Flint mayor) Dayne Walling”.

The Free Press reports state officials downplayed or ignored complaints until October, when the Department of Environmental Quality said it failed to require the addition of needed corrosion control chemicals.

“I trust that the good men and women of the National Guard will jump start the Snyder administration’s lackluster response to this public health crisis”, Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said, the Free Press reports.