If you lived in East Chicago's West Calumet neighborhood for years, you'd be fearful and with good reasons.
Perilous residue from arsenic and lead smelting diminished life in a city immersed in that industrial pollution.
But what residents most need now — beyond relocation and access to health care — is for city, state and federal officials to respond to their needs with urgency and transparency. They want the threat to their well-being treated as if it's an emergency, because it is.
Mayor Anthony Copeland first publicly sounded the alarm in June. Yet, until he met with residents Wednesday, if the mayor was still on the case, it was a surprise to them.
The unofficial but representative Community Strategy Group asked Copeland and his administration to step up. Be involved, visible and passionate.
Declare the city in a state of emergency, because it is. Lives are in danger.
They had complained about Copeland's public visibility ever since an August forum in the early days of the cleanup at the U.S.S. Lead Superfund site.
On Wednesday, Copeland told residents his administration has logged thousands of hours on their behalf, dealing with state and federal officials lobbying their cause. City officials produced a 12-page list of meetings the mayor's had pushing their cause with state and federal officials.
"We are family, and we are in the same boat," he said.
True, but they can't do it alone.
Soon, East Chicago residents should have a new friend in Washington — one with some major pull and easy access to the man in charge, Donald Trump.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who hasn't personally visited East Chicago since the lead crisis surfaced, must intervene. He owes it to his home state.
Indiana Gov.-elect Eric Holcomb also must make this a priority of his incoming administration and put a call in to his new friend in Washington, too.
Fifty years of ignored contaminant risks, for various reasons and by various agencies, at the West Calumet Housing Complex could easily be considered indifference. Even when the risk was uncovered, the process of moving the residents and getting them help has seemed to go equally slow.
Slow does not work now. Closed doors do not work.
East Chicago needs a champion. Who's it going to be?