Loud explosions shook the city of Flint, Michigan, last week as the army took part in military drills in the area.
People’s homes shook as soldiers used aircraft and simulated ammunition as part of “training with urban environments”.
Residents were left angry as they were caught off-guard as they were not warned that such exercises were scheduled to take place. The exercises will continue for a further 10 days.
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Wnem.com reports:
Just after 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, the city sent out a release informing the public about the exercises. People say the explosions went off around 2 Tuesday afternoon, but why were residents given such short notice?
“Obviously, I can’t speak for the Army on that, but we try to give people a heads up when we can, we can’t go into too much detail, we don’t want people just coming to these things and sightseeing,” Lorenz said.
But Wednesday the city apologized for the timing of the notification to residents.
Lorenz said for the safety of residents and the military, they’re trying to keep things under wraps. But those nearby say the house-rattling explosions were an unwanted surprise.
“Give us a message around here, ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do,'” Glenn said.
On Wednesday, military officials and Flint leaders held a media availability, but Lorenz later called TV5 and said the officials from the army didn’t wanted their faces shown during our broadcast. The concern: terrorists may try to find them and harm them.
Flint Police also explained the reasoning behind the delay in notification on Tuesday.
“Yesterday was a unique situation,” said Chief James Tolbert. “For whatever reason the timetable was moved up. And we put it out as soon as we could. We did put it out before there was any type of explosives.”
Officials do say they will release more information following the exercises, but specifics will be kept secret so tactics aren’t passed to our enemies.
The U.S. Army is paying for the overtime incurred by the Flint Police Department.
Army officials said the exercised is not related to Operation Jade Helm.
The Flint Police Department said the U.S. military will conduct in more training exercises in Flint during the weekend of June 5. That training involves the use of simunitions and helicopters.
