THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS / SUNDAY, MAY 8, 2016 / D11
The lives affected
Jambernice Lang, 17, daughter of Jallise D. Wash-Lang, said her family uses maybe 120 bottles of water per week despite having four water filters in the house.
Damond Kendall, 12, says his family has seven water filters, and they stopped bathing in Flint tap water about a month ago.
Muslims perform ablutions with water. The practice involves washing and breathing in the water. Ameer Shareef, 65, leads Islamic prayer sessions at the Genesee County Jail each week.
Stephen Davis, 41, said he stopped drinking Flint water in January, after hearing about the crisis in the newspaper, on the radio and in the streets.
I tell them not to inhale the water and to only wet a couple fingers.”
If they don’t fix it soon, it’s gonna be a crisis in Flint for many, many years to come.”
Brett Isham, 37, said the water is “toxic,” and he doesn’t believe residents should pay their bills until it is fixed.
JaCorey Ridley, 10, sweats as he runs around Berston Field House on Flint’s north side while training to be a boxer. He is living through the Flint water crisis. Bonnie Grass, 64, says she has had a water filter in her home, but still drives three times a week to get water or goes to friends’ homes to get water.
Quentin Howell, 20, and Angel McLilly, 19, are sick of Flint water. She is sick of her skin peeling. She is sick of all the work it takes just to get clean.
Jacoby Ridley, 12, brother of JaCorey Ridley, said his family only has one water filter in their home and he uses 6 bottles a day.
Allen Lee May, 60, stopped drinking Flint tap but still bathes in it. He says his “hair came out and (he has) sores on his body.”
We have to heat up bottles of water to take a bath. I don’t think they care. They just care about collecting money.”
Emma Davis, 27, says she paid her water bill “all the way through” and is “not happy — looking forward to that refund.” She says she is suffering from high blood pressure.
Ronald Artis, 77, says he uses bottled water to wash dishes and bathe, and uses filtered water for cooking. “I stopped trusting any water between Detroit and Flint,” he says.
It’s horrifying. The water, it burns our eyes.” Rhonda Kelso, 53, says she has been living a nightmare. She says she has been hospitalized and suffered blackouts. She adds that her 12-year-old daughter’s hair has fallen out.
Dennis Allen II, 15, says his family has two water filters at home, uses as many as 140 bottles of water a week and, yet, he has been told he is having “liver problems.”
Can they get something done?” Wanda Hunter, 42, said she drank Flint water until last fall, and the situation has been a challenge and a struggle. She believes skin rashes were caused by bathing in city water and worries about what can be done for people who have used it for months.
Earlene Underwood, 81, says she is unsure whether lead-tainted water will affect her health. “Don’t know yet,” but there is “the fear.”
Deajinae Gibson, 12, lives in a home with a water filter but her family still uses a case and a half of 12-ounce water bottles a day. She points out that Flint water “has always been dirty.”