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Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.reporterherald.com/news_story.asp?id=19775
Publish Date: 10/11/2008
Is Loveland better prepared for pandemic than it was in 1918?
By Pamela Dickman
Loveland Reporter-Herald
A pandemic flu killed 50 million people worldwide in 1918 — moms, dads, children, brothers, sisters, neighbors.
There was nowhere to hide and no way to prevent the highly contagious and deadly flu.
Loveland, then a primarily agricultural community, lost 67 of its 5,000 residents.
The first deaths were recorded 90 years ago this week, the last in February 1919.
Charles and Jessie Phye had moved to Loveland two years earlier from Eaton, possibly to be closer to their oldest daughter or for Charles to work at the Great Western Sugar Factory, according to research by
Dr. Adrienne LeBailly, head of the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment.
By October 1918, the entire Phye family was ill with the deadly flu, which had caused officials to close schools, churches and theaters and to ban all events at which people would gather, including funerals.
People were encouraged to phone in orders to stores so they could pick them up and not linger in public places.
“The city marshal was instructed to arrest persons who violate the order by loitering around drinking fountains and in stores or other places,” according to the Oct. 18, 1918, Loveland Reporter.
The entire city of Boulder and the San Juan basin were quarantined.
In Loveland, the sick — estimated at 1,500 total, although numbers were not recorded — filled the local hospital and a makeshift hospital at the Elks Lodge (a community building formerly located at Fifth Street and Cleveland Avenue, now the Reporter-Herald parking lot).
Residents donated food, beds, supplies and time to tend the sick at the Elks hospital.
It was there, between Oct. 30 and Nov. 9, that Charles, Jessie and all six of the Phye children died from the “Spanish flu.”
The only family member to survive was 3-year-old Charles Long, son of the oldest daughter, 19-year-old Florence.
“The doctors or nurses in the hospital said, ‘Get this child out of here, or he’s going to be dead too,’” LeBailly said, recalling a conversation she recently had with Long’s daughter.
“He went to relatives of his father, which was the Long family. For a while, he was in an orphanage and ran away.”
Long lived to be 90 before he died in 2005 in Weld County. He served in the U.S. Army, became a volunteer fireman and earned a living as a self-employed carpenter, according to reports of his death.
Other outbreaks of a pandemic flu occurred in 1957 and 1968, although they were not as deadly as 1918’s.
Different strains of the flu virus occur every year, and health officials urge people to get flu shots to avoid severe illness.
A pandemic flu, however, is a different beast. It strikes from an entirely new subtype of influenza to which people have never been exposed. There is no vaccine or built-up immunity, and it can spread quickly and far.
“Everybody is vulnerable,” said LeBailly.
Her words echo those of 1918 Loveland Mayor T.R. Norcross, recorded in the Loveland Reporter newspaper: “No age is exempt, and the robust as well as the weak are afflicted.”
ON THE NET: For more information, go to www.pandemicflu.gov.
Flu numbers
50 million people died worldwide from the 1918 pandemic influenza, called the Spanish flu.
675,000 died in Colorado, and thousands more were ill.
67 Loveland residents died, including eight members of the Phye family.
90 years ago, the first of three pandemic flu outbreaks in the 20th century hit.
Precautions
A pandemic flu could strike today, tomorrow or any year, health officials warn.
And while they have studied the past and prepared for the future, Loveland officials say the city is both better and less prepared than it was 90 years ago, should such an epidemic occur.
Local governments and health departments have plans in place to keep essential services operating even if the people who run utilities, stores and hospitals become bedridden or die.
And Loveland, like other communities, has advanced medical care and communication via the Internet and the news media, said Dr. Adrienne LeBailly, Larimer County’s top health official, and Merlin Green, Loveland’s emergency manager and interim fire chief.
However, in 1918, people worked on their own farms, not in crowded office environments, and they were more self-reliant.
“People had their own food supplies,” Green said.
“They did their own canning. They weren’t as reliant on grocery stores to provide their food every other day.”
Green would like to see people stock up on food staples — items such as canned tuna, peanut butter, canned vegetables — to survive several days in a pandemic or other emergency.
Cities are planning, but so should residents, LeBailly and Green said.
“You can do more to protect your family than your government can do to protect you,” LeBailly added.
Publish Date: 10/11/2008
Is Loveland better prepared for pandemic than it was in 1918?
By Pamela Dickman
Loveland Reporter-Herald
A pandemic flu killed 50 million people worldwide in 1918 — moms, dads, children, brothers, sisters, neighbors.
There was nowhere to hide and no way to prevent the highly contagious and deadly flu.
Loveland, then a primarily agricultural community, lost 67 of its 5,000 residents.
The first deaths were recorded 90 years ago this week, the last in February 1919.
Charles and Jessie Phye had moved to Loveland two years earlier from Eaton, possibly to be closer to their oldest daughter or for Charles to work at the Great Western Sugar Factory, according to research by
Dr. Adrienne LeBailly, head of the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment.
By October 1918, the entire Phye family was ill with the deadly flu, which had caused officials to close schools, churches and theaters and to ban all events at which people would gather, including funerals.
People were encouraged to phone in orders to stores so they could pick them up and not linger in public places.
“The city marshal was instructed to arrest persons who violate the order by loitering around drinking fountains and in stores or other places,” according to the Oct. 18, 1918, Loveland Reporter.
The entire city of Boulder and the San Juan basin were quarantined.
In Loveland, the sick — estimated at 1,500 total, although numbers were not recorded — filled the local hospital and a makeshift hospital at the Elks Lodge (a community building formerly located at Fifth Street and Cleveland Avenue, now the Reporter-Herald parking lot).
Residents donated food, beds, supplies and time to tend the sick at the Elks hospital.
It was there, between Oct. 30 and Nov. 9, that Charles, Jessie and all six of the Phye children died from the “Spanish flu.”
The only family member to survive was 3-year-old Charles Long, son of the oldest daughter, 19-year-old Florence.
“The doctors or nurses in the hospital said, ‘Get this child out of here, or he’s going to be dead too,’” LeBailly said, recalling a conversation she recently had with Long’s daughter.
“He went to relatives of his father, which was the Long family. For a while, he was in an orphanage and ran away.”
Long lived to be 90 before he died in 2005 in Weld County. He served in the U.S. Army, became a volunteer fireman and earned a living as a self-employed carpenter, according to reports of his death.
Other outbreaks of a pandemic flu occurred in 1957 and 1968, although they were not as deadly as 1918’s.
Different strains of the flu virus occur every year, and health officials urge people to get flu shots to avoid severe illness.
A pandemic flu, however, is a different beast. It strikes from an entirely new subtype of influenza to which people have never been exposed. There is no vaccine or built-up immunity, and it can spread quickly and far.
“Everybody is vulnerable,” said LeBailly.
Her words echo those of 1918 Loveland Mayor T.R. Norcross, recorded in the Loveland Reporter newspaper: “No age is exempt, and the robust as well as the weak are afflicted.”
ON THE NET: For more information, go to www.pandemicflu.gov.
Flu numbers
50 million people died worldwide from the 1918 pandemic influenza, called the Spanish flu.
675,000 died in Colorado, and thousands more were ill.
67 Loveland residents died, including eight members of the Phye family.
90 years ago, the first of three pandemic flu outbreaks in the 20th century hit.
Precautions
A pandemic flu could strike today, tomorrow or any year, health officials warn.
And while they have studied the past and prepared for the future, Loveland officials say the city is both better and less prepared than it was 90 years ago, should such an epidemic occur.
Local governments and health departments have plans in place to keep essential services operating even if the people who run utilities, stores and hospitals become bedridden or die.
And Loveland, like other communities, has advanced medical care and communication via the Internet and the news media, said Dr. Adrienne LeBailly, Larimer County’s top health official, and Merlin Green, Loveland’s emergency manager and interim fire chief.
However, in 1918, people worked on their own farms, not in crowded office environments, and they were more self-reliant.
“People had their own food supplies,” Green said.
“They did their own canning. They weren’t as reliant on grocery stores to provide their food every other day.”
Green would like to see people stock up on food staples — items such as canned tuna, peanut butter, canned vegetables — to survive several days in a pandemic or other emergency.
Cities are planning, but so should residents, LeBailly and Green said.
“You can do more to protect your family than your government can do to protect you,” LeBailly added.