National Guard arrives in Flint to aid in water crisis recovery effort

A handful of National Guard leaders have arrived in Flint and are being briefed on the city’s lead in water crisis this morning, January 13.

Snyder declared an emergency in Flint last week, three months after his office was presented with tests showing that numerous city’s children had elevated levels of lead in their blood.

The Snyder Administration has drawn increasing criticism over its handling of the crisis, including that state officials may have manipulated water-testing data to show the water was safe to drink when it wasn’t.

Until now, people in the city have been forced to pick up supplies or equipment from specified sites.

Snyder has also sent a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for federal help with the Flint water situation.

“Flint needs more action and less talk from Governor Snyder”, Kildee said.

Just when you thought the good people of Flint could just go to the store to get bottled water, it turns out the 33-mile city doesn’t even have a grocery store.

“I’m responsible for the entire state and our operations”, he said.

Exposure to lead can cause behavioral problems and learning disabilities in young children.

The American Red Cross has volunteers distributing water testing kits, water filters and bottled water at several locations. This week, the EPA’s top Midwest official confessed that the agency knew as early as April 2015 that Flint’s water lacked corrosion controls, but told the Detroit News that her “hands were tied” in bringing that information to the public.

The city switched its water source from the city of Detroit to the Flint River in 2014, in order to save money.

Late Tuesday, the governor issued an executive order to activate the National Guard, the state’s latest step in an effort to provide relief to Flint residents exposed to contaminated drinking water.

The governor has apologized, there have been resignations at MEDQ and the state has helped pay for switching back to Detroit’s water system, but these moves are only the beginning.

And Earley, the emergency manager who planned Flint’s switch to river water?

Since October, more than 12,000 filters have been distributed, more than 2,000 blood tests have been done – uncovering 43 cases of elevated lead levels – and more than 700 water tests have been conducted, Snyder said. Over the next year and a half, a series of public announcements and troubling disclosures, many of them first reported by investigative journalist Curt Guyette, described Flint’s deteriorating water quality and growing public dismay.