Deadly Flu of 1918 Spurred Denial, Then Drastic Action
5:42 am, Mon Jan 28, 2013.
The near-closure of the entire city, mandatory face masks and hundreds of deaths were just weeks ahead, along with an epic battle of commerce versus public health.
But nobody in the coastal town by the border was too worried about a deadly flu rampaging across the world in September 1918. "San Diego is full of colds just now," a local newspaper noted, but that wasn't even in a story. It was just an advertisement for something called Dover's Powders.
Things changed almost instantly. Within days, camps of World War I soldiers were quarantined, the local health board president warned of a disease "more murderous than any epidemic the nation has yet experienced" and officials shut down schools, theaters, churches and more.
The deadliest epidemic to ever hit the nation had come to San Diego, where it would take the lives of 368 people, or about one in every 200 residents. Many of those stricken were young and strong, unlike the victims of this year's flu season in the county. (So far, 14 people have died, their ages ranged from 46 to 92, and all but one were already weakened by existing illnesses.)
From Kansas to the World
The epidemic of the Spanish flu didn't start in Spain. The first reports in the world came from a military camp in Kansas, where dozens of men died after struggling to breathe amid fever, headaches, chills and fluid-filled lungs.
Other soldiers survived to be shipped out to Europe to fight in World War I in Europe. They almost certainly spread the illness to that continent, where hundreds of thousands fell ill and died.
As September 1918 turned into October, hundreds would die in single days in Philadelphia and Boston, and the first reported cases of the deadly flu appeared in San Diego at the Army's Camp Kearny.
By early October, four military facilities were quarantined. The "Bluejackets" training at a naval training camp at Balboa Park had to stick around and not take their usual liberty three times a week. They played sports and games instead, the San Diego Union reported.
No Spitting in Balboa Park
"Order has been passed out that there is to be no expectorating on the streets of the park," the paper reported. "The punishment is that the lad spitting on the street or the plaza must wear a cigar box swung about his neck, and this box is partially filled with sand and serves as a receptacle for the cigarette and cigar stubs of the victim’s shipmates."
The city itself, though, didn't worry too much. Bustling with 70,000 residents and just three years past the exposition that put Balboa Park on the national map, San Diego had other things on its mind. Soldiers were flooding the city to prepare to fight in the war, and the recently elected mayor who'd run on a "More Smokestacks" platform, was pushing for more business.
As the flu worsened, city leaders took a pro-business position. They weren't too interested in shutting anything down to prevent the flu's spread even after the local coroner quit to protest their lack of action....
