Jesse Richardson speaks about the difficulty of caring for a small child during the West Virginia Water Crisis, as well as her frustration that she bathed, fed, and gave her child contaminated water before the public was informed of the chemical spill.
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Randy Barrett, Mayor of Winfield, Putnam County tells us his story about how the last 24 hours have been for him as mayor, how he found out about the crisis, and his opinion on how the situation was handled.
*I apologize for the shakiness, fuzziness, and sound. It’s a great video aside from the production quality. Once I have more time for editing, I’ll post a cleaner version.
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Freedom Industries is responsible for leaking Eastmans Crude MCHC product into the Elk River Watershead.
West Virginia American Water is responsible for not removing it from the water they supply to their customers nor detecting it while first saying their plant was removing it.
Various city and state representatives are responsible for declaring a state of emergency and preventing 300K citizens the us of water without any evidence it is unsafe which has also crippled thousands of businesses. They are also liable for gross negligence for ignoring Freedom Industries Tier 2 form disclosure and not having any plans in place for a dealing with a leak when they were fully aware that the tank farm was situated on the Elk and less than 1.5 miles from WVAW’s water intake. Over the years they’ve accepted 10’s of millions of dollars of tax payers money to plan for events like these.
This is a terrible situation infinitely exacerbated by the negligence of many individuals. There will be a reckoning in the coming weeks and months and all will be held fully accountable for their failures.
I urge every body affected by this travesty to first secure water and food provisions for their family, check on your neighbors and then to seek legal representation as soon as possible. There will be lawsuits against a multitude of public and private entities. Please file your claim as soon as possible to ensure that you can be compensated before the bankruptcies and insurance limits.
What I don’t understand is why they waited so long to tell us about the water being contaminated. We, the public, had a right to know way before we were notified. Did they think that they could just sweep it under the rug?
How are they gonna flush each and every line when it is time and in a quick and timely manner,especially out here in the country? They say this can go on for weeks possibly even months…I don’t think so. The people that were affected by this chemical spill can’t live like this for months.
I am a 26 years old and my name is Kendra Meeks. I live in Winfield, WV, and I am a victim of the water crisis. I have two young sons who are both 6 years old (not twins…stepbrothers) but we have suffered a lot in the past three weeks. First our schools were closed two Christmas break for a week and a half and then both my sons went back to school on that Thursday like planned, but then that Friday the schools had to close due to bad weather (snow). Then the following Monday they were closed still for bad weather. Tuesday and Wednesday they were out due to no power, so they finally went back this past Thursday and we were all hoping they wouldn’t miss anymore school due to make-up days. Then we heard the news of this chemical leak, which of course closed school this past Friday. Talk about aggravating. My children have been in school for two days in the last three weeks, and who knows when they will be allowed to go back!!!
This isn’t the only reason I’m irritated though. The big issue to me is that we weren’t notified until 4 pm in the evening about this leak, and that the plant knew what happened but never told anyone is wrong. I babysit at home and I was letting my sitting children drink the water all day and I cooked them lunch with that water. What if it would’ve seriously hurt these children who are two to three years old?!!! That guilt would’ve never left my mind if I knew I was the reason that something happened to those precious babies. What the plant owner did was wrong.
Not to mention, I’m to worried to go to the grocery store because I don’t want to get trampled on by all these people out there that are worried and buying all the food and drinks they can. So now my question is who is going to feed my children when we run out of food cause there is none to buy?!! Somebody will because I will dig to the end of the earth if I have to for those plant owners to feed my kids if I have to and I’m sure there are plenty other parents out there that are worried about this same exact thing!!! How can you sit back and know that this is harmful but still not tell anyone and let people bathe and drink this crap?!!
All I know is I will NOT be paying my water bill this month bc it’s half their fault too for not communicating with the plant and vice versa!!!! We have been relying on our community for water and praise The Lord my sister who resides in St. Albans has their city water. My fiancé works at Diamond Electric and they were kind enough to bring portable showers in for their employees and their families so that’s where we have been bathing which is RIDICULOUS that I can’t bathe my own kids in my home!!!
Who’s going to pay for all the water we have bought or the laundry and dishes we can’t touch which are piling high bc we can’t find plastic or paper plates or silverware anywhere!!! So let me just say this if my children are out of school any longer than a week I’m going to be highly upset because not only did they interrupt our lives every day, but they also took away the ability for my children to learn, School is where children belong not locked up in a house that you can’t brush your teeth, take a bath, or even touch the water for that matter!!!
We need and want answers and I do believe that the plant needs to start talking instead of avoiding the situation this isn’t a minor issue it has affected around 300,000 people and it’s hard to tell how many of those people are infant newborn babies that are innocent and what if their mothers can’t find water to feed their children what are they supposed to do just let their baby’s starve to death!!!! I’m sure this has affected some of the workers at this plant so why they won’t speak is beyond me but also I think it’s quite rude when the owner is having a press conference with the news channel and he stops talking to take a drink of his bottled water. How about you quit being selfish since you started this problem and get out there and start handing your bottled water out to the people who are affected!!!
I want to thank whoever started this blog because this just lifted a huge weight off my shoulders because I have been highly upset for days now and it feels good to get this off my chest!!! I hope those that are affected by this issue have what they need and I hope they have friends and family as great as I do to help them out and don’t forget if you have pets do not give them tapwater give them bottled!!! Good luck everyone and you’re all in my prayers as I hope I am in yours!!!
I just wanted to say that I was very happy to see are community come together in this time of need because we need more people to help one another and not get out of control. This too will pass.
As for the people responsible for this, they need to pay for their actions — leaving the community in the dark like that by waiting forever to report this leak. You know this company tried to hide this. How can the community smell this odor but the people working there didn’t? Then they send their own investigators out there around 10:30 to 11:00 am for them to find the leak just for the company not to report it till 12:00 pm. Someone is hiding something and the truth will come out in the end. And I do hold the water company somewhat responsible too. Knowing damn well what’s was up river from them and had no sense to not be communicating with these people on a regular basis. I would think if it were me and I was responsible for hundreds of thousand of people’s safety I would have done a better job working on ways to prevent such a thing.
“IM JUST SAYING.”
My family is one of the 300,000 people without water. I have a toddler and had already bathed, cooked, washed his clothes, and served him water to drink. To my understanding, they had already known about the chemical leak a day before. The air had smelled funny for two days and the water also. I am upset that I brushed my child’s teeth and let him have contact and ingest such a dangerous substance.
My grandmother is 70 years old and her whole house smells of licorice! My mother and her brother are taking care of her but are expericing headaches and sore throats! My family and I have dry skin as we speak and it’s not due to the weather. We want answers! The president of the company was rude and has provided the public with nothing! I am concerned for my child’s safety at best!
Gary Adkins of Hometown, WV speaks about his last 24 hours dealing with the WV water crisis, his confusion over Freedom Industry and the DEP’s delayed response, and his hopes for the future.
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Tim Faber, owner of Winfield Quick Stop, a Sunoco station in Putnam County, WV speaks about bringing water to people in his community, the economic impact of the crisis, and his past experience working at Union Carbide (now Dow chemical) in Institute, WV.
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I live in the Malden area of Kanawha county, right outside of Charleston. What myself and my fellow West Virginians are experiencing right now is no joke. Being told that we can’t use our water for anything but flushing the toilets and putting out a fire is kind of scary. Knowing that there is a plant with such hazardous materials just miles from our water treatment center is scary too. It’s is complete chaos here right now, everyone is scrambling to buy up as much water, disposable eating supplies, baby wipes, and hand sanitizer as they can, because we’ve been told that there is no time line as to when our lives will return to normal… It’s crazy!! The only thing that really bothers me is the fact that I can’t shower. I have to go to work every day this coming week, I work to support myself, and not going is not an option for me, and driving 40 plus mile a day to take a shower and do laundry in clean water isn’t very feasible, that’s more money in gas that we have to spend, it totally defeats me going to work. It’s a vicious cycle, I wish there was someway they could set up portable showers and laundry facilities or something, that would be so helpful to so many different people. I love my state though, everyone has been extremely helpful with giving out water and bringing in clean water for people to fill their own containers with. In times of trouble we all pull together and help each other out and that’s one of my most favorite things about West Virginia… On the bright side of things, because I always try to find the bright side, I honestly feel blessed because in all my 25 years of life this is the first time I have ever had to deal with something like this, in other countries unclean water is something people have to live with every single day. This really makes me realize how good we have it. Our water crisis here in WV will eventually end, life will go back to normal, and we will begin to take everything for granted like we did before we weren’t able to live life normally. Those other people in the other countries will still be dealing with their unclean water… This is just a small taste of the struggles they go through on a daily basis from the time they are born, till the time they die, so be thankful for that!
West Virginia Water Crisis 