I was on this flight last night. First time I've ever been in this situation. Considering the weather in the midwest yesterday, I'm super surprised this flight flew. Here's the timeline:

Original departure was scheduled for 4:45PM, just as the snow was beginning to come down. Our pilot ended up coming in on a delayed flight, which pushed us back to 5:10PM, then 5:25PM. They made an announcement around 5:30PM that our pilot was taxiing to a gate, then around 5:45PM, they announced that he was parked at a gate and they had authorization to board the flight with the first officer and flight attendant on board. We boarded.

Around 5:50PM, the pilot shows up, has to go through all his pre-flight stuff, do paperwork, etc. He finishes around 6:05PM, and we call for de-icing. We go through de-icing, and we taxi. As third in line for takeoff, it takes another 45 minutes or so to take off (Wheels up was 7:01PM)

About 20 minutes prior to landing, the captain comes on and says (Paraphrased):
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've got a notification up here in the cockpit that the motors on our flaps are not working properly. It's indicating they're working at half the speed they should be. There's also another notification that our anti-stall system is not working properly. I've gone ahead and called Flint to declare an emergency, just as a precaution. We should have a completely normal landing, but I don't want anyone to be concerned when you see all the firetrucks."

We hit the ground relatively hard (But not alarmingly hard), then we reverse-thrusted extremely hard, and there were probably 6 or 7 firetrucks waiting for us. A paramedic was standing on the jetbridge when we deplaned. The pilot handled the announcement and the landing well. Nobody on board seemed too scared, but after I got off the plane, I started thinking about the Continental flight 1713 incident, and I'm wondering: Was 45 minutes too long for us to wait between being de-iced and taking off in the middle of a snowstorm? Would this be the root cause of the flap problems, and could this very easily have been a lot worse?

I was scheduled on the same flight two days prior, and it was canceled due to snow in Flint that was MUCH lighter and MUCH shorter. I always joke that they cancel this flight if the wind blows in an unfavorable direction. I'm still kind of baffled that they didn't cancel this one. I wanted to pull the liveATC recording to hear what was said, but it appears the stream for KFNT has been offline since May.