Gov. Rick Snyder visited a Flint home on Monday and drank filtered water from the family's tap.He then announced that he'll be drinking filtered tap water from Flint for the next 30 days to show the public that it's safe.
Cheryl Canty, the Flint resident who opened up her home to Snyder, tells us she was surprised to find out that the governor would be paying her a visit.
"I didn't know until about a half hour before he arrived," she says.
Canty's home has lead and copper service lines, and for a time she was using water filters and drinking the water from the water from the tap. But when some service lines near her home were being replaced, her tap water's lead levels spiked. She says she and her family "went straight to bottled water for everything."
"Within a few days of them replacing those lead lines is when my spike happened," Canty says. "We need to know where they're replacing the lines and when they're replacing the lines, because then we can be more aware that we could have spikes going through our lines."
Canty tells us that she had been trying to find a way to contact the governor to share some of her concerns. Though the visit was unexpected, she says it was reassuring.
"I'm so grateful for that opportunity yesterday," Canty says. "It eased my mind on a lot of things. I was able to talk to him about so many things. He asked me a lot of questions regarding my fears, my concerns, things like that, and he intently listened. He answered all of my questions that I had."
Snyder was accompanied Monday by some of his staff and a number of experts, but Canty says the governor really knew his stuff and never needed to lean on any of them.
"He knew the answer to everything that I said, so he's obviously well informed at this point," she says. "They could have jumped in and answered my questions, but they didn't need to, he actually knew the answers. I was really grateful for that."
Listen to our interview with Cheryl Canty
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