Questions linger in Flint like a bad taste
FLINT, Mich. — A silver-haired woman with butterscotch skin, Mary Stewart sits inside Shiloh Commons Apartments, telling us her story: After four heart attacks and two strokes, Stewart, 69, recently learned she has a cyst on one kidney.
It may be cancerous, she says. She thinks it may have been caused by the “bad” water, the corroded pipes, the dangerous levels of lead in the drinking water. But she’s not sure.
Indeed Stewart’s testimony is among many in this city of 100,000, where residents complain of disorders, disease and assorted ailments since the water two years ago started coming out of the faucet orange and foul smelling.
In case the world has forgotten, in Flint, questions still linger, like a bad taste — in this city declared by President Barack Obama to be in a state of emergency.
Indeed “we” found Flint well immersed in a public health crisis, flooded with fears over the unknown. And yet, saturated with faith and with hope.
I came to Flint recently with a team of student journalists in my class at Roosevelt University. We came to capture the human story. To chronicle “The Faces of the Poisoned.”
Among them is Deonta Malone, 10. A soft-spoken boy, he bears a stubborn purplish rash on his right thigh. His family blames the water. Reduced to taking birdbaths with heated bottled water, Deonta told us he dreams of the day he’ll be able to run the tub full and delight in a long hot bath, as he used to — on the day life finally returns to normal.
Whenever that is, however, no one around here seems to know.
Terraca Rogers, a mother of three, sits inside Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, reflecting on the personal impact. The hands of her children, Shamya, Brianna, and Malik, she recalls, began peeling, started looking like dried prunes. The skin of one of her daughters turned charcoal black. She had all her children tested for lead. No trace. No answers from doctors.
But the rashes and skin disorders only showed up after the city switched its water source in April 2014 from “Detroit” water to the polluted Flint River. That’s why Rogers, like most everyone here, suspects it’s the water-poison water.
In fact, officials say the water funneled from the Flint River to many homes was a toxic soup.
“It’s difficult,” Rogers said. “You have to change your whole routine of how you do things, getting up extra early just so the kids can have fresh and warm water — when you get up in the morning to wash their face, to brush their teeth and even make breakfast with,” she explained. “It’s difficult.”
That much was clear and as palpable as the sense of faith and hope, flowing through the parking lot of Greater Holy Temple Church of God in Christ, where throngs of volunteers working in the Saturday cold unloaded two semitrailers of bottled water, food and snacks and filled the cars of local residents.
Also clear is that local churches and volunteers from across the country have become the lifeline for people deprived of a basic human right: access to clean water.
Clear that despite the erratic ebb and flow of the national media spotlight on Flint, that a crisis here continues with measurable day-to-day impact and irreversible damage already inflicted upon untold lives.
After having stared into their faces and listened to their stories, I feel compelled to say, just in case the world has forgotten, there is still a crisis in Flint.
“We’ve got to have people to hear our cry,” Stewart told us.
I only hope we’re all listening.