Here's how Flint's water crisis happened

You don’t know Flint if you didn’t know the city once stored winter for summer. Before modern refrigeration, the Flint Ice & Coal Company harvested natural ice from frozen Michigan lakes each winter, packed it in sawdust, and stored it in insulated ice houses along the Flint River. That ice was delivered to homes and businesses during the hot summer months to preserve milk, meat, and produce. Cold was free in January. But it was essential in July. This is a forgotten chapter of Flint history — w