A widespread concern for residents throughout the lead-poisoned city is not knowing how they, or their children and grandchildren, may be impacted because of exposure to the contaminated water.
“You try to keep going like everything’s OK,” Angie Thornton-George said of living with the water crisis that still has no known end date. “But … it’s not OK.”
Thornton-George, like others in town, wonders what effect the water will have on her down the road.
“It’s not so much that you’re like just walking around in fear, but it’s always in the back of your mind — what will happen to me in later years that may be a result of the drinking of this water?” said Thornton-George, 48.
Health care workers and community leaders said they’ve seen increased anxiety in all ages — kids through senior citizens — because of the situation. They point out there are more resources to help families and if people take advantage of them, their children are much more likely to have positive outcomes.
Meanwhile, many residents in the city of 98,000 are living the same way they’ve been living for months: picking up cases of free bottled water from distribution centers for daily use, stacking them up at their homes and questioning how much longer they have to live this way.