The water crisis started almost a decade ago. Residents of Flint, Mich., are still healing from the disaster — and caring for their own.
On a Saturday in May in Flint, Mich., residents took seats in one of three rings of chairs at a local food bank. The 50 or so participants, spanning three generations, would spend time that morning sharing stories and practicing deep listening as part of a healing circle. It’s one component of a wider community-based movement to
For a year and a half, officials dismissed residents’ concerns about the safety of the water. “It was horrifying, because not only were they not believed, but they weren’t taken seriously,” Bromet says. The anger that goes along with that “is of course a detrimental emotional state to be in for a long period of time.”
What has happened in Flint — and what continues there — illustrates a community’s activism and perseverance, as well as the mental health fallout of a disaster. But this story won’t end in Flint. Communities across the country could find themselves part of the next chapter, their lives upended by catastrophe. The United States’of these traumatic events. The water disaster in Flint can be seen as both a warning and a model of community response.
After the public notice of the violation in January 2015, Flint resident LeeAnne Walters asked the city to test her water. Samples from February and March revealed lead levels around seven and 27 times what spurs regulatory action. Walters’ home plumbing was plastic. An analysis of the city service line to the house. When Walters’ 4-year-old son was tested for lead in March, his level was 6.5 micrograms per deciliter. No amount of lead is considered safe. At the time, the U.S.
Eventually, the trauma rose to the surface. There had been so much worry, stress, anger and grief. Parents who had cajoled their kids to choose water over soda and juice were distraught. “I feel so guilty now,” Luster says. “I was poisoning my kid.” Pets died unexpectedly, which seemed to be tied to drinking the water. “I ended up losing both my dogs,” Watkins says. “That was just devastating.” Getting enough bottled water was a financial hardship for many.
“To live with that level of betrayal,” says Bromet, the Stony Brook psychiatric epidemiologist, “of course it takes its toll.” People sing together at a community celebration on January 20, 2020, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, at the Flint Institute of Arts.The disaster has weighed heavily on the mental health of residents, both children and adults. From December 2018 to March 2020, researchers surveyed the caregivers of 1,203 children, ages 3 to 17.
Beyond that, Flint organizations are taking community-based approaches to help residents cope. The Flint ReCAST program, supported with a grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, funds local organizations seeking to address trauma and stress in the community. ReCAST has supported art, music and dance programs for young people and an initiative to build mindfulness skills among the police and community members.
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