Stories and anecdotes of the impact of the Great Pandemic in individual states were gathered for presentation at Pandemic Planning Summits held in each state.
Alabama State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
February 22, 2006
That Great Pandemic also touched Alabama.
It first appeared in late September 1918 in Florence, Alabama (in the northwest corner of the state). Just three weeks later, over 25,000 cases of influenza in the state had been reported to the U.S. Public Health Service.
It is impossible to know for sure exactly how many Alabamans were affected by the flu, since regular reports to the U.S. Public Health Service were never made. But it is known that during the last two weeks of October, more than 37,000 cases of the flu erupted in Alabama.
People around the state died by the hundreds.
Health care professionals worked tirelessly, and with limited resources to stem the tide of the rising pandemic. A report sent to the U.S. Public Health Service described the conditions under which physicians in Florence were working:
"...[Doctors were] overwhelmed with work [and] were handicapped by inadequate transportation and two days behind in making calls; many patients . . . had been sick in bunk houses and tents for several days without nourishment, or medical and nursing attention, the sanitary conditions of the bunk houses were deplorable; the mess halls were grossly unsanitary and their operation much hampered by the lack of help; the existing hospitals were greatly overcrowded with patients; and patients were waiting in line several hours for dispensary treatment, and were greatly delayed in obtaining prescriptions at the pharmacy. The epidemic was so far progressed that the immediate isolation of all cases was impossible."
One man, J.D. Washburn served in a medical unit in Alabama during the war and recalled his experience:
"We worked like dogs from about seven in the morning until the last patient of the day had been checked in or out-usually about 10 o'clock that night. The men died like flies, and several times we ran out of boxes to bury them in, and had to put their bodies in cold storage until more boxes were shipped in. It was horrible."
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Alabama.
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Alaska State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
April 13, 2006
That Great Pandemic also touched Alaska.
When the pandemic flu became rampant in the lower 48 states, Alaska territorial governor Thomas Riggs, Jr. imposed a maritime quarantine and restricted travel to the interior part of the territory. U.S. Marshals were stationed at all ports, trailheads, and river mouths. Schools, churches, theaters, and pool halls were closed.
In Juneau, residents were instructed to "keep as much to yourself as possible." Fairbanks established quarantine stations, also guarded by Marshals. People were checked periodically for flu and, if healthy, were given armbands reading "OK Fairbanks Health Department." Vaccine was imported from Seattle and distributed throughout the area, though it, of course, didn't work. In Native villages, shamans encouraged people to plant "medicine trees" that could protect against influenza.
Unfortunately, despite these precautions, influenza spread throughout the territory. Half of Nome's white population fell ill. Walter Shields, Nome's Superintendent of Education, was one of the first to die. The Alaska Native population in Nome was decimated—176 of the 300 Alaska Natives in the region died.
Elsewhere, entire Native families too sick to feed their fires froze to death in their homes. Many who were brought to a makeshift hospital believed that it was a death house, and so, instead, committed suicide. Spit the Wind, widely considered Alaska's greatest musher, died at the age of 25. He had survived a grueling expedition to the North Pole in which he had been forced to eat his snowshoe lacings, but he couldn't survive the flu.
On November 7th, the governor issued a special directive to "All Alaskan Natives." Natives were urged to stay at home and avoid public gatherings-something anathema to their communal lives. The pandemic swept through communities, killing whole villages. One schoolbteacher reported that, in her area, "three [villages were] wiped out entirely, others average 85% deaths.... Total number of deaths reported 750, probably 25% [of] this number froze to death before help arrived."
Because they were so sick with the flu, many Alaska Natives and others were unable to chop wood or harvest moose' so, after the pandemic had passed, many more died of starvation. Some people were forced to eat their sled dogs, and some sled dogs ate the dead and the dying.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes again, it will strike in Alaska.
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Arizona State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
January 6, 2006
The Great Pandemic also touched Arizona.
The leading newspaper of the day was the Arizona Republican. The threat was high enough that it did not publish a paper for a time.
A "Citizens Committee" deputized a special police force and called upon all "patriotic citizens" to enforce anti-influenza ordinances.
Each person had to wear a mask in public. Those who coughed or spat without covering their mouths were arrested. The Republican described "A city of masked faces, a city as grotesque as a masked carnival."
As the disease raged, people took recourse to unusual remedies.
For instance, Arizona had ratified Prohibition earlier in the year (May 1918) and so the state superintendent of public health turned to nearly 10,000 pints of bootleggers' whiskey that had been confiscated by the sheriff's office.
Within two days, news of the loophole traveled across the city, and the sheriff's office was besieged with citizens and doctors alike, all of them seeking the "remedy."
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Arkansas State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable John Agwunobi
Assistant Secretary of Health
Department of Health and Human Services
July 27, 2006
The Great Pandemic also touched Arkansas.
On October 4, 1918, an outbreak was first reported just in Lonoke County. It exploded within days. The following week, the state said, “Serious epidemics have been reported from several points.” Within two weeks of the pandemic’s first appearance, about 1,800 new cases were being diagnosed each day.
One of those afflicted was James Geiger, the U.S. Public Health Service Officer for Arkansas. He downplayed the threat to the state–possibly to avert a panic–even after he caught the flu, and his wife died from it.
Segregation meant that African-Americans suffered cruelly. Many could not receive the care they desperately needed, since they could only be treated by doctors and nurses of the same race. It is clear that African-Americans died in high numbers, although the state did a poor job keeping records of their deaths.
Soldiers also suffered and died from the flu. It is likely that more Arkansans perished from the influenza than from the killing fields of Europe. At least 450 airmen were afflicted at the aviation training facility of Eberts Field in Lonoke County. More than 3,500 soldiers were afflicted at Camp Pike in Pulaski County. To prevent the pandemic from spreading further, the camp was sealed and quarantined. To still the panic, the camp commander insisted that the names of the dead not be released.
No one will know how many finally fell to the great pandemic. Records are incomplete and many rural districts went unreported, yet echoes of the suffering and loss remain.
If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Arkansas.
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California State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
March 30, 2006
That Great Pandemic also touched California.
The first few cases were reported in Belvedere and San Gabriel in Los Angeles County in the last days of September 1918. The next week, more than 500 cases were reported.
In Los Angeles, local health officials were optimistic. They said, "If ordinary precautions are observed, there is no cause for alarm."
They could not have been more wrong. The disease was exploding around the state.
Within two days of issuing that statement, schools and churches were shut down to prevent the spread of the disease. Theaters were closed—sometimes for good—as they could not withstand the loss of revenue.
By the first week of November, more than 115,000 cases and hundreds of deaths across the state had been reported.
Makeshift hospitals were hastily opened to deal with the surge of patients that were overwhelming the health care system.
In San Francisco and elsewhere, mandates compelled the wearing of masks in public on penalty of fines or even imprisonment.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported, "The man who wears no mask will likely become isolated, suspected, and regarded as a slacker. Like a man of means without a Liberty Loan button, he'll be shy of friends."
A rhyme was used to help people remember the ordinance:
Obey the laws
And wear the gauze
Protect your jaws
From septic paws
Though the pandemic began to subside in November, residents still felt its effects through the holiday season. Citizens were still asked to do their Christmas shopping by phone rather than to travel to stores in person. Shopkeepers were even asked not to hold holiday sales, as they might draw crowds.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to California.
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Connecticut State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
February 2, 2006
The Great Pandemic also touched Connecticut.
It struck the week of September 11th, laying low Navy personnel in New London. Just two weeks later, about 2,000 cases of influenza were reported in and around the city.
On September 27th, the Public Health Service declared, "influenza is prevalent throughout the eastern and southern parts of the state and it appears to be increasing." It was. Three days later, 9,000 cases were reported. A week later, that number had doubled. Then it redoubled, and redoubled again. By the end of October, an estimated 180,000 people had been struck by influenza.
By that point, more than 300 people had died here in Hartford. The Hartford Golf Club became an emergency hospital. A Public Health Service officer from Hartford named F.S. Echols fell to the pandemic. A nurse named Beatrice Springer Wilde recounted the tragic story of four Yale students that she treated. They had become ill while traveling and decided to get off the train in Hartford. Their last steps were taken from the train station to the hospital, for within twenty-four hours, all were dead.
People begged for - and sometimes demanded - treatment. The Hartford Courant reported that in the town of New Britain (just south of Hartford) one man blocked the car of a local doctor, insisting that he see his daughter. The physician said that he was too overwhelmed with cases to do so. The standoff continued until the mayor intervened and arranged for a doctor to see the man's daughter.
The people of Boston were not so fortunate. The pandemic was spreading with equal ferocity through Massachusetts, and the situation in Boston was so bad that those there begged the people of Connecticut to send any doctors or nurses that could be spared.
None could be. The emergency was too dire; the pandemic was too overwhelming. The Connecticut Commissioner of Health (John T. Black) was forced to urge doctors and nurses to remain in the state.
At its peak, the pandemic claimed more than 1,600 lives in a single week. But the total number it took in Connecticut will never be known. Reports are incomplete; the pandemic was too overpowering. But its echoes of terror, of suffering, and of loss remain.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Connecticut.
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Delaware State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Alex Azar
Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services
February 21, 2006
That Great Pandemic also touched Delaware.
In 1918, Delaware was the fourth-smallest state by population in the U.S., with just under a quarter million people. It also ranked as the second smallest state in the nation by land area, after Rhode Island.
Yet despite its small size, in the fall of 1918, Delaware reported thousands of cases of the Spanish flu, as well as hundreds of deaths from it. Exact numbers of Delawareans affected by the flu will never be known, because regular reports to the U.S. Public Health Service were never made.
Regardless of the numbers, though, Delaware acted to contain the flu just as many other states had. On October 3, 1918, the Delaware State Board of Health met in an emergency session to stem the death toll from influenza. They shut down most of the state:
"Whereas: A very serious epidemic of influenza is now raging in the state of Delaware...to protect the health of the entire citizenship of Delaware...all schools, all theatres, all churches, all motion picture houses, all dance halls, all carnivals, fairs and bazaars, all billiard rooms and pool rooms, all bowling alleys in the entire State of Delaware shall be closed and kept closed until further notice."
This order remained in effect for more than three weeks. Yet even these careful precautions were not enough to control the disease.
As the situation in Delaware worsened, Delaware became so overwhelmed that the Health Department tried to divert influenza patients to Philadelphia hospitals. The flu, however, knew no state lines. Philadelphia was unable to come to Delaware's rescue, as they too were completely overrun by the disease.
Nearby, at Memorial Hospital in New Jersey, Mr. John Kingsman, age 36, died on a Monday afternoon. Days earlier, his 17-year-old daughter died in the same spot, though he never knew it. Those taking care of him could not bring themselves to tell him that-just a week after his mother and stepbrother died in Dover-his teenaged daughter was also dead.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the 21st century will be much different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Delaware.
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District of Columbia Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
March 20, 2006
That Great Pandemic also touched the District of Columbia.
The city was crowded with people contributing to the war effort, and so as soon as the first cases appeared, the situation became serious.
That happened around the last week of September. Then the disease spread rapidly. More than 160 cases were reported on October 1. Seven days later (October 8), more than 2,100 people had been attacked by the flu.
The dead began to multiply. Four hundred forty victims of influenza were reported on the second week of October. More than 730 victims were reported the following week.
The DC Health Commissioner, Louis Brownlow, faced a shortage of coffins. He resorted to hijacking a shipment of coffins that were passing through the city en route to Pittsburgh.
In the Sardo funeral home (located in the District), Bill Sardo remembered that:
"From the moment I got up in the morning to when I went to bed at night, I felt a constant sense of fear. We wore gauze masks. We were afraid to kiss each other, to eat with each other, to have contact of any kind. We had no family life, no church life, no community life. Fear tore people apart."
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to the District of Columbia.
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Colorado State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
March 24, 2006
The Great Pandemic also touched Colorado.
It first appeared in late September 1918, when some 33 suspected cases were reported at the University of Colorado. It raged across the state through the month of October, sickening those in the valleys, and bringing down residents of high mountain towns.
More than 150 people died in a single week here in Denver. Thousands were afflicted (though actual numbers are unknown).
One of those was Katherine Porter, who would later earn fame and acclaim (including a Pulitzer Prize) for her short stories. One of her best-known works was Pale Horse, Pale Rider, a fictionalized account of her experience in the pandemic.
Porter contracted influenza while working as a journalist for the Rocky Mountain News. She could not be admitted to the hospital at first, because there was no room. Instead, she was threatened with eviction by her landlady and then cared for by an unknown boarder who nursed her until a bed was open at the hospital.
Porter was so sick that her newspaper colleagues prepared an obituary and her father chose a burial plot. Her near-death experience changed Porter in a profound way. She said afterward, "It just simply divided my life, cut across it like that. So that everything before that was just getting ready, and after that I was in some strange way altered."
The lives of countless other Coloradoans were also altered.
Residents of Boulder experienced a quarantine. So did all of those living in the entire San Juan Basin (in the southwest corner of the state). All gatherings were cancelled, including schools, sporting events, and social outings. Voters and judges alike were required to wear surgical masks during the November election. People were even prohibited to gather for funerals.
The city of Silverton (located just north of Durango) lost nearly 10 percent of its population, including morticians. Coffins had to be sent from Durango to accommodate the large numbers of the dead.
The pandemic finally faded, leaving echoes of terror and suffering and loss all across the state.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Colorado.
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Florida State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
February 16, 2006
That Great Pandemic also touched Florida.
In 1918, Florida's statewide population was around five percent of what it is today-under one million people.
Despite this scant population, between mid-October and late November 1918, the state reported thousands of cases of the Spanish flu, as well as hundreds of deaths from it.
The exact numbers of Floridians affected by the flu will never be known, because regular reports to the U.S. Public Health Service were never made.
Numbers or not, Florida reacted to the flu as so many other states did: City ordinances mandated quarantines and the wearing of facemasks in public, public gatherings were banned, and schools and churches were closed.
Yet even these careful precautions were not enough to control the disease, even when they were obeyed.
In the fall of 1918, an Ocala, FL man, Mr. Olson, traveled to Jacksonville, FL for a carpentry job. Jacksonville was inundated with the flu at the time, and despite a citywide quarantine and the use of gauze masks, Olson contracted the flu.
Eager to return to his hometown and family, he slipped past the quarantine and caught a train back home, bringing the virus with him. Within days of his return, he had infected his family, and was bed-ridden with his son. Olson recovered but others were not as fortunate.
In 1919, eight-year-old Carl Lindner shared a room in the Marion County hospital with his five-year-old cousin, Philip Townsend. Both had come down with the flu. When young Philip recovered, he asked the nurses where his cousin was. The only answer the nurses could give was that Carl had already gone home. They did not know how to tell a five-year-old that his cousin was dead.
Within three weeks, Carl's father and maternal grandfather also died from the disease.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Florida.
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Georgia State Summit: History Supplement
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
January 13, 2006
The Great Pandemic also touched Georgia.
It probably arrived during the first week of October 1918, and then spread like a wildfire throughout the state. In just three weeks, from October 19th to November 9th, there were more than 20,000 cases and more than 500 deaths.
Towns and communities were terribly affected.
Augusta was the hardest-hit city in the state. Trained nurses were far too few for the many needs, and they too were struck down by the pandemic. As a consequence, nursing students were put in charge of shifts at a local hospital. Schoolteachers were enlisted to act as nurses, cooks and hospital clerks, at an emergency hospital constructed on a local fairground.
In Athens, the University of Georgia announced that it was indefinitely suspending classes.
In the town of Quitman, stringent rules were established to combat influenza, which touched almost facet of life:
- Public gatherings, including indoor funerals, were prohibited
- Public spitting was outlawed
- The serving of any beverage was prohibited in public places, unless it was poured into sanitary cups or served in glasses that were thoroughly sterilized each time they were used
- The accumulation of dust in places of business was prohibited. Merchants were ordered to keep their floors damp enough to keep the dust down
- All cases of influenza were ordered quarantined. In places where the disease had struck, a placard stating "influenza" had to be displayed
A similar strategy was adopted here in Atlanta. The City Council declared a ban on public gatherings for two months. Schools, libraries, theaters and churches were all closed.
For better ventilation, streetcars were ordered to keep their windows open, except in the rain.
Yet despite all those desperate measures, the pandemic still extracted a terrible toll.
Final casualty figures in Georgia will never be known. After making their initial reports, state officials were simply too overwhelmed to tell the U.S. Public Health Service anything more.
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Idaho State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
March 27, 2006
The Great Pandemic also touched Idaho.
The first cases were reported in Canyon County (northwest of Boise) on September 30th. Within three weeks, the disease was raging all across the state.
Franklin County (located in the southeastern corner of the state) was one of the many areas hit hard by the pandemic. One of the residents, Watkin L. Roe from the Franklin County Citizen newspaper, sent a letter to Surgeon General Rupert Blue (on behalf of "many prominent citizens") reporting that the pandemic had affected about 1,300 of the county's 7,500-8,000 residents and had killed 31.
Mr. Roe wanted the Surgeon General's advice on two points. First, he wanted to know if there was "any virtue in the vaccines and serums which the doctors are using." Second, Mr. Roe and his fellow citizens wondered whether or not to close places of public gathering like schools, theaters and picture shows, since although they feared catching the pandemic, they also feared paralyzing business.
No answer is reported, but similar anxieties were felt across the state.
Messages were sometimes mixed, as people struggled to inform but not to inflame. For instance, a headline of the Rexburg Journal (northeast Idaho) read "NO OCCASION FOR PANIC," even as the same issue included an order from city officials putting the town under quarantine and banning all public gatherings.
The Northern Idaho News of Sandpoint (north-central Idaho), declared that there was no cause for alarm over the flu, but then noted that, as a precautionary measure, schools would be closed indefinitely, and churches, picture shows and all public gatherings of every kind would be prohibited. The newspaper also issued a warning to parents to keep their children away from the railway depots as a precaution against infection.
Though those measures likely helped, many Idahoans were still afflicted.
In the town of Paris (located in the southeast corner of the state), resident Russell Clark remembered that the mortality rate was around 50 percent. Clark said, "There was a feeling of depression and sadness because neighbors . . . were passing away."
The final toll that the pandemic took in Idaho will never be known. But the echoes of suffering and loss remain.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Idaho.
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Illinois State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
March 17, 2006
That Great Pandemic also touched Illinois.
Chicago was then the nation's second largest city and the country's largest rail hub. As a consequence, the disease reached the city quickly. Before the disease reached this city, overconfident public health officers proclaimed, "We have the Spanish influenza situation well in hand now."
Then the disease came.
Influenza was reported in Chicago on September 27th. Within two weeks, it was epidemic throughout the state. Cities like Kankakee and Rockford were as hard hit as rural sections and coal-mining districts.
But Chicago saw the most awful impacts. While the pandemic raged toward its dreadful peak, the city saw an average of 12,000 new cases each week. More than 2,100 Chicagoans died during the second week of October. More than 2,300 died during the third week.
The city ran out of hearses. Signs were posted banning public funerals, and limiting funeral attendees to no more than 10, in addition to the undertaker, the minister, and necessary drivers. No bodies were allowed in churches.
A U.S. Public Health Services Officer named Jo Cobb, who was working at the city's Marine Hospital wrote to a friend, "Our beds were filled as fast as emptied."
Navy nurse Josie Brown, who served at Naval Hospital in Great Lakes remembered:
"The morgues were packed almost to the ceiling with bodies stacked one on top of another. The morticians worked day and night. You could never turn around without seeing a big red truck loaded with caskets for the train station so bodies could be sent home. We didn't have the time to treat them. We didn't take temperatures; we didn't even have time to take blood pressure. We would give them a little hot whisky toddy; that's about all we had time to do. They would have terrific nosebleeds with it. Sometimes the blood would just shoot across the room. You had to get out of the way or someone's nose would bleed all over you."
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Illinois.
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Indiana State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
March 23, 2006
That Great Pandemic also touched Indiana.
The pandemic was first recognized within the state on September 20th, 1918. It was reported in Evansville (southwest tip of Indiana) on September 25th, and in Indianapolis five days later. By the week of October 11th, influenza was reported in many places across the state.
People did all they could to slow the spread of the pandemic. In late September, the Indiana State Board of Health issued an order to all county and city health officers warning them of the pandemic, suggesting preventive measures (like the holding of handkerchiefs over the nose when sneezing or coughing), and calling for the exclusion of those with colds from public gatherings.
A week later, the Board of Health imposed a ban on all public gatherings. Churches were open for prayer, but not large services. Public funerals were banned.
Evansville added an anti-spitting ordinance to other measures. The local paper advertised remedies like Dr. Jones' Liniment, Mendenhall's Chill and Fever Tonic, and Father John's Medicine.
Schools were closed in Indianapolis. Citizens were required to wear masks in stores and streetcars, offices and factories, public buildings and theaters. A ban on Halloween parties and gatherings was credited with saving the city from a worse epidemic.
Such measures may have lessened its cruelty. During the pandemic, about 12% of Indianans were afflicted with the flu, compared to about 25% of all Americans.
But the toll across the state was still severe. By the time the pandemic finally passed, at least 150,000 Indianans had been afflicted by the pandemic. About 10,000 had died.
The victims included a Mrs. Estil Graffis and her husband, who lived in Fulton County (north-central Indiana). Estil died on a Wednesday. Her husband followed her the next Monday. Within a week, influenza had made orphans of their three children. Tragic stories like that of the Graffis' were not uncommon across the state.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Indiana.
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Iowa State Summit History Supplement
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
February 7, 2006
The Great Pandemic also touched Iowa.
The pandemic was already spreading through soldiers stationed in Iowa before it began rising in the civilian population. On October 5th, 1918, the first cases of flu were reported in Des Moines, and on that same day, the Des Moines Tribune reported that local hospitals were refusing any more patients with the flu.
After just 25 confirmed cases among civilians in Des Moines, the Surgeon General suggested the city close theaters and other public places to prevent a pandemic.
It was already too late. Within one week, the Public Health Service reported that there were more than 8,100 new cases of the flu (civilian and military) and more than 70 deaths from it, and the number "appears to be increasing."
The following week, more than 21,000 cases were reported.
In Des Moines, a general quarantine was established for the entire city. Schools were closed. So were theaters, pool halls and other gathering places.
With no classes to teach, teachers were paid to contribute to "sanitary detective work." This meant traveling from door-to-door to survey homes for flu sufferers.
By the time the pandemic finally ran its terrible course, countless people had been afflicted. The final toll that the pandemic took in Iowa will never be known. But the echoes here remain.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Iowa.
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Kansas State Summit
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
May 31, 2006
That great pandemic also touched Kansas. In fact, it is likely to have begun here. In late January and February of 1918, a physician in Haskell County (located in the southwestern corner of the state), noticed an outbreak of severe influenza cases.
The local paper, the Santa Fe Monitor reported (excerpt from The Great Influenza):
Mrs. Eva Van Alstine is sick with pneumonia. Her little son, Roy, is now able to get up. . . . Ralph Linderman is still quite sick. . . . Goldie Wolgehagen is working at the Beeman store during her sister Eva's sickness.
That list of the afflicted would be terribly lengthened in the fall.
An infected soldier from Haskell County is thought to have carried the influenza with him to Camp Funston, near Fort Riley (about an hour's drive west from Topeka). In mid-March an outbreak there afflicted more than 1,100 soldiers, killing 38.
The disease disappeared for a while, and then returned with a vengeance in the fall. It appeared in Kansas in September, and raged across the state throughout the terrible month of October.
The first official report of the disease came on September 27th. First 1,000 people were afflicted, and then, 10,000. By mid-October, more than 26,000 people had been afflicted by the flu.
A soldier from Camp Funston followed the effects of the pandemic there through letters home. On September 29, he wrote:
We are held up because "influenza," or some such a name, is in the camp. It is some such a thing as pneumonia, and they seem to think it is pretty bad. It is at least bad enough to beat us out of our passes.
A week later, on October 6th, he wrote, "Lots of them go to the base hospital every day and quite a number of them are 'checking in.' There are between 6 and 7,000 cases in the camp."
Two days later he wrote:
I am still playing the part of a "dry nurse," ha-ha. Some name us boys have invented for a gentleman nurse. The roof of our hospital has been leaking in several places and we have been having some time keeping the poor devils dry.
They are keeping our beds all filled with new patients as fast as we send the old ones "home well" or to the hospital, half-dead. There haven't been so many cases the last 48 hours. I sure hope that they all get well soon, for I am sure getting tired of the job. Don't like to stay up every night the best in the world. We put six more of our boys in bed today. We are getting real short-handed.
And still the epidemic raged. In Topeka-and elsewhere-hospitals overflowed. Emergency hospitals were opened at the Garfield School and the Reid Hotel. Two infirmaries connected to Washburn College (in Topeka) were opened. The college gym was transformed into "an observation hospital."
The Secretary of the State Board of Health did all he could to contain the disease-closing schools, churches and theaters; quarantining homes with ill patients; and, limiting the numbers of people in stores and passengers on streetcars.
Yet, the pandemic still took a terrible toll. The final cost will never be known, but echoes of loss remain.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Kansas.
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Kentucky State Summit: History Supplement
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Alex Azar
Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services
January 20, 2006
The Great Pandemic also touched Kentucky.
Kentucky saw its first cases of influenza during the last week of September 1918. Infected troops traveling on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad stopped off in Bowling Green, KY, where they passed the virus on to a few of the local citizens.
By the time the first week ended, Louisville had already suffered an estimated 1,000 cases of influenza.
The pandemic grew even worse in ensuing weeks. Louisville alone lost 180 people each week from influenza during the second and third weeks after it struck.
On October 6, the Kentucky State Board of Health announced the closing of "all places of amusement, schools, churches and other places of assembly."
Because they were almost certainly simply overwhelmed with combating the disease, Kentucky officials did not even report influenza cases to the U.S. Public Health Service until late October.
At that point, state officials reported more than 5,000 cases of the flu. Over the next three weeks, they reported over 8,000 more.
The state was never able to reliably report the deaths that resulted from the flu in Kentucky, but accounts from residents at the time paint a grim picture.
For instance, in Pike County, Kentucky, a miner named Teamus Bartley called the epidemic, "The saddest lookin' time then that ever you saw in your life."
He and his brother worked at a coal mine when his brother's entire family came down with the disease. Teamus visited his brother every night, and reported on what he saw:
"...every, nearly every porch, every porch that I'd look at had--would have a casket box a sittin' on it. And men a diggin' graves just as hard as they could and the mines had to shut down there wasn't a nary a man, there wasn't a, there wasn't a mine arunnin' a lump of coal or runnin' no work. Stayed that away for about six weeks."
Teamus later said that each night, he saw four or five miners and family members die in the camps.
Even as late as mid-December 1918, Kentucky was so overwhelmed by the disease that a local health officer sent an urgent telegram to Surgeon General Rupert Blue requesting that the U.S. Public Health Service take over the administration of health work until the influenza epidemic had abated.
When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past. If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Kentucky.
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