Flint Water Crisis Public Archive
Our archive aims to expand access to primary documents to illustrate how and why the Flint Water Crisis happened, through public records and community member contributions.
The Flint Water Crisis was a major urban disaster:
and the city's crisis is still ongoing.
Our Primary Collection
Our primary collection is a large archive of emails sent by multiple government agencies during the crisis leadup and fallout, and released by Michigan in 2016. Our database allows users to search this important public dataset systematically for the first time.
Email Database Tools
Our Calendar and Search tools provide access to our email database.
Email Calendar and Timeline
Users can browse emails sent each day between 2011-2016, alongside key events in the development of the water crisis.
Email Search Tool
Our email database lets users view a large subset of email threads by date, subject, and sender/receiver.
Oral Histories and Public Documents
The archive is also collecting oral histories from Flint residents. These oral histories, along with a second collection of public documents broadly relating to the Flint Water Crisis and Flint's governance in this period, is hosted by the Genesee Historical Collection Center in Flint within the University of Michigan-Flint's Frances Willson Thompson Library. Listen to the oral histories and access those documents here