Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 302; Elaina Hernandez interview, part 4 of 4

Please? Wait, nobody here. I don't know if there's much chance. I know. It's usually the other way around. Yes. Okay. Roland? Roland? Roland? Good night. Okay. Yes. For what I've learned 2014, 15, and 16, there's all been, do not drink warnings in effect. Sometimes, you know, within the summer of fall. As a mother, what did you, when you first hear that, what do you think? So, when I first heard about the water crisis in the summer, it actually was really late at night, and it almost seemed like maybe it was not real, because I had seen it on Facebook. It was probably about two o'clock in the morning, and I was tempted to actually, because my husband was working nights, then, to call my father to go and get us water. And I thought, no, I don't need to do that. That seems extreme. Everything will be fine in the morning, not thinking that it was something that was going to really last. But then, come the morning, it still was a water crisis, and everyone was rushing to get the water,

and thinking to myself, I should, I saw it at night. I should have gone right then, and left the kids, and just gone and got that water, because it was really hard to find water in the morning. Luckily, people came in, my family actually traveled out of the city to get water and bring it back. So, it was a pretty scary idea at the time I was also teaching children from other families, and they had the same kind of feelings that they didn't really know where they were going to get that water from, and also to the gouging of the prices for the water, where people were making a case of water for $20. When people are really struggling and scared, and what are you going to do? If you really have nowhere that you can go, you're going to pay that money. Wow, never thought of that. Okay. Yeah.

So, how did that affect your daily life with a family? So, the first thing that we did besides getting the water is we went to the store, and we bought things that we would not have to wash or that we could just eat out of the microwave. So, I went, I got paper plates, I got frozen meals, and I bought everything like that. So, then that way, we could actually eat meals and not have to worry that we want to be able to wash our dishes, because you couldn't even use the water to wash dishes. You couldn't use that water to wash your hands. So, it was just preparing for all that, and we didn't know how long it was going to last either. So, you know, going to the store, luckily, for the most part, by the time I had gone to the store, it was in the afternoon. And people were all, in the community, were all really polite. Everyone was, it was really nice in, you know, trying to get through it. I don't know if we, with going longer, how polite everyone would be, but everyone was, was really, really polite. And I lived pretty close to the line of Toledo and to Oregon.

And there were even people who had set up their water hoses on their property line that had put signs that said free water, so that people, if they needed to, could come and bring a jug and fill up the water. So, you know, the community really kind of pulled together to help each other, and it was, it was really nice to see. Very cool. Did you talk to your neighbors about all this, the crisis and everything that was going on? Was it, I mean, obviously it had to have been a top of conversation. Or what, what was the conversation like? Everyone was, everyone was worried, some people were kind of skeptical, like, is this real? Is this really an issue, or are they just telling us, you know, can you still drink it? You hear some people say, well, I still drink the water and, and I'm fine. So, you're not really sure, you weren't really sure what to believe. Obviously, was something that everyone was talking about, it was, in the summertime, it was hot. So, you know, everyone's getting a cold drink, or even just having ice, you couldn't have ice. So, you know, everyone was talking about it, we actually went to festivals that weekend for different events,

and even at the festivals and things like that, they're serving food, and well, how are you preparing this food? You know, you're asking people, how are you preparing it, and people are telling you about, well, I had to have my child take a shower. So, I put tape on his mouth, and put him in the shower, and you're thinking to yourself, well, I think I can, I can wait. You know, I'm not going to risk that idea of, let's take a shower, just in case. But, yeah, I mean, you heard a lot of really crazy kind of stories that, you know, people were kind of doing to, to get through it. Luckily, it wasn't, even though it was a, a day or two, it didn't last too long. Did you know of anybody who got sick from drinking the water? I do not know of anyone who got sick from drinking the water. Okay, the summer, obviously, we don't think it's going to go away, because they have not, obviously, figured out, well, they know the problems, they haven't solved the problems. How do you prepare for it?

So, we always keep a case of water in our house now, and we didn't use to do that. We have case, at least one full case of water in our house, a larger case, plus then we have, like, gallons of water that we keep. Even though you know that that water won't last as long, we keep those gallons of water, that would be more for just, like, hand washing, not so much for eating or drinking with. But we always keep that prepared, just in case something was to happen. And I know a lot of families that do that. Everybody's just in case they have that extra water that was in the house, where I think a lot of people before didn't have problem with drinking the tap water, you know, just part of it. I mean, for the most part, I think the city water actually is pretty tasty. So, it has a good taste to it, but everybody does stock up on it now to make sure that they're okay. What do you think should be done to solve the problem? I think there's a lot of different things that can kind of be done. I know that with our city, we really do need to work on infrastructure as far as, like, our water departments and things go.

I mean, it's a great system, but it's an older system, and it's something that we're really going to have to buckle down. To eventually, someone's going to have to say this has to get fixed, and we're all going to have to say, okay, let's fork it over the money, and we have to do it. And we're going to have to really make sure that we make wise choices when we do something like that. But also to just being conscious of what is going into the water, into the rivers, because this is such a benefit to our community. And it's so important to have this resource that we can't spoil it. We can't poison it for future generations. We need to make sure that this is something that will last. And in the long run, this is something that actually will make us a very wealthy community because we have this resource. This should attract businesses, not scare businesses, and things away. And if we don't take care of this resource, that's exactly what it's going to do.

We should be using it to our benefit, and make sure that we protect it. Do you blame anybody for this? I don't know if I would say that I really blame anyone for it. It's a combination of things. If you know that that's what's going into the water, then obviously you should make sure that you're taking care of it. I think that back when we first started doing certain kinds of processes, as far as farming and things go, we were looking at making sure that the crops were good, and that we had good food for everyone. And not realizing that what else it could do to the environment. We know. And so we need to make sure that we don't keep making those same mistakes, that we change that, and that we really take care of it so that this water really lasts on the community and the world. It's very precious.

What should I ask you that I did? I know she says something, but they went to the next community and got water to pick it out. How did the region actually evolve? The region that was in the Toledo area, you would think that it would incorporate the next little city over, which is Oregon, but they're actually on a different water treatment plant. So it didn't affect them the same way it affected Toledo. Now it did affect little suburbs of Toledo, and it affected some of the other cities that were south of us because they're with the same water plant as us. So I know that since this happened, some of those other communities are looking into forming their own water plants, and that actually would hurt the city of Toledo because they're buying their water from us. So we want to make sure that we take care of it so that they still buy water from us because that's income for our city. Do you think the city has handled the crisis well?

I think the city handled it as well as they could. I know that they had to wait so many hours before they could retest the water, even though they were kind of getting clean samples from it. So maybe they could have told us it was okay to drink it earlier, but they did what they were supposed to do. And they were pretty good at keeping everybody informed about what was going on and where they were passing out water and making sure that people got that water. It was hot then, and you want to make sure that people are drinking the water that they should. When you fill your tap water today, do you think about it? No, no. We're water drinkers in our household, and we drink a lot of tap water. So we're not too nervous about drinking it, but I do know that some people who have babies will only use bottled water for their formula to make sure that everything's okay. They didn't used to do that.

What do you guys think? Cool. Yes, we'll get smaller in town. Room town. Room town. Room town.