87 years ago today - October 10, 1918

1918 pandemic, war, and small town life, as reported by the local paper (beginning Oct 1). The virus is in San Francisco, and has reached Redding, but hasn't arrived in Nevada County yet.
============================

Influenza Is Holding Grip on Entire Nation

...is now epidemic in virtually every state and shows no abatement in army camps

Motion Picture Industry to discontinue releases after October 15

Reaches Camp Lewis ... prevalent in Cape Town, Australia, Pernambuco, South America

----------

Community singing last night - large audience at the Auditorium. M. Henry Argall was the Four Minute Man*.

An apple tree at Spenceville is in full bloom.

Mrs JF Towle of San Francisco is visiting her son CW Towle and family.

Placer County cattle are dying of unknown cause. "They stagger around a while, then plunge forward, dead."

Only two lightless nights a weeks soon.

War Relic train to be at Colfax Friday morning.

[the editorial page is silent on flu today]

Charles Salmon (of the Salmon mine at Tyler) has secured the Eastin bungalow on Nevada St. for the winter.

Richard Phillips of Spring St, who has been down with Malarial Fever for a couple of weeks, is out again.

Cecil Brophy has had measles for the past 10 days; it is a mild case and he is out of bed.

There was a large attendance at the Kieffer funeral yesterday.

Frank Crase at Camp Hancock* has been promoted to First Lieutenant.

=====================

2005

Get your insights here:
via Laura, some excellent (Paul Graham caliber) articles on communicating risk to the public -

• Adjustment Reactions: The Teachable Moment in Crisis Communication
  
• What makes an excellent pandemic communication speech.
  
• Communicating worst case scenarios and how communicators cheat -
  One common approach is to mention the worst case scenario once or twice in a low-circulation technical report, or even in a news release, so it’s on the record -- and then stop talking about it. With a little luck maybe nobody will pick up on it much. Repetition is a key signal to journalists and stakeholders that something is important. If you don’t repeat it, they may not notice it, or may not realize its importance.
  Another strategy is to say it, even to say it often, but without much drama. If you phrase the worst case technically enough, maybe reporters and the public won’t know what you mean; if you phrase it boringly enough, maybe it won’t quite register.
  ...
  Virtually every unauthorized precaution people decide to take is called panic by those in authority...
  
  
• The myth of panic
  

and lots more. If you're partial to scoffing at the stupidity of others, you won't enjoy this reading.