Before Governor Snyder heads to Washington to testify about the Flint water crisis, congressional leaders wanted to see the problems first hand. The visited the Flint water plant today and they're hoping seeing the crisis in person will help them understand what went wrong.
"Who's in charge of that? How many homes and how long is that going to take?" asked Rep. Jason Chaffetz.
Members of the U.S. Congress have plenty of questions for Governor Snyder.
The visit was to better understand what happened to the city ahead of more hearings in D.C.
"I want to see it. I want to feel it. The enormity of it just really strikes me. I mean this is, talk about real people and their lives" said Rep. Chaffetz.
Chaffetz is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Visiting in Flint in person is helping him decide what he wants to hear from Governor Snyder, this week.
"I just want to hear the truth. I want to hear a game plan for moving forward. I want to understand how we got into the mess." Chaffetz said. "I want to understand the truth and I want understand where we're gonna go from here."
Governor Snyder previously turned down an invitation to testify but later decided to. Flint Mayor Karen Weaver hopes to find out why he changed his mind.
"I'm waiting to hear myself, I'll be watching with bated breath to see what comes out of those hearings" said Mayor Weaver.
She says with having the members of the committee along with other congress members visit, she knows they're committed.
"That shows that they want to know what's going on, they care about what's happening and they want to get a better understanding" said Weaver. "The best way to do that is come visit the city first hand."
Chairman Chaffetz says there's plenty of blame to go around.
"We're gonna hold people accountable, particularly at the federal level. The EPA knew about this for a long long time and never told anybody and that's just flat out wrong. Somebody needs to be held accountable for that" Chaffetz said.
