A "mad dash" of phone calls in October 2014 may imply that former Gov. Rick Snyder was aware of Flint's Legionnaires' disease outbreak far earlier than he admits to, a new report claims.
Former Gov. Rick Snyder (file photo)
Snyder has testified that he became aware of the water crisis in January 2016, and informed the public the following day. The Legionnaires' outbreak, also tied to the water supply but with far more connected deaths -- officially 12, but likely more -- took longer to tie to the change in Flint's water supply, which happened in April 2014.
According to the findings of an investigation launched by Nessel’s predecessor, then-Attorney General Bill Schuette, Snyder was involved in a mad dash of phone calls in October 2014 at the same time the deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Flint was raising alarm bells among state health and environmental officials — yet still unknown to the Flint residents drinking and bathing in Flint River water.
The criminal investigation was originally launched in 2016 when Schuette named a special prosecutor, Todd Flood, to run the investigation. That avalanche of calls, uncovered by investigators, included multiple conversations between Snyder, his chief of staff, and the state’s health department director. Other evidence from the same period — including briefings addressed to the governor that mentioned Flint’s Legionnaires’ disease outbreak — led prosecutors to conclude the calls were about the outbreak, which was unfolding in real time.
Snyder, the evidence suggests, learned of the outbreak just weeks before his reelection in 2014. In 2016, Snyder testified to Congress that he first learned of Flint’s Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that January and held a press conference the next day. Yet in October 2017, Harvey Hollins, director of the state’s Office of Urban Initiatives, testified that he had informed Snyder of Flint’s Legionnaires’ issues in December 2015.
Yesterday, Snyder was charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty in connection with the water crisis. Both are misdemeanors.
Complaints from residents and water customers began fairly soon after the April 2014 switch, and Legionnaires' has been linked to atomized water droplets. Snyder had requested a briefing in October. On October 13, "state health department epidemiologist Shannon Johnson authored an email sharing her research and hypothesis that the 'source of the outbreak may be the Flint municipal water,'” The Intercept reports.
