The state Health Department was notified almost immediately. Again, there was initial shock and disbelief, but they moved. The Governor mobilized appropriate Guard trucks and facilities, not just to aid in handling the patients but also to cordon off the entire area around the town.
Less than fifteen minutes after the network newsmen had it, a report went in to the National Disease Control Center in Fairfax County, Virginia, just outside Washington. Field representatives were dispatched from Omaha and the University of Nebraska within the hour.
In a small but comfortable apartment in the city of Fairfax, a phone rang.
Dr. Sandra O’Connell had just walked in and hadn’t even had time to take off her shoes when the ringing began. She picked up the phone.
“Sandra O’Connell,” she said into it.
“Dr. O’Connell? This is Mack Rotovich. We got another one, Red Code, same pattern.”
Oh, my God! she said to herself. “Where?” “Small town in western Nebraska, Cornwall I think it is.”
“Symptoms?”
“Catatonia, looks like,” Rotovich informed her. “’Things are still more than a little sketchy. It just broke a few hours ago.”
She dreaded the next question the most. “How many?” she asked.
“Six hundred forty or so to this point,” Rotovich told her. “Maybe more now. Hard to say. Got a few elsewhere, seemed to hit about the same time, and there’s a lot of people out in the fields yet. We’re sending the Guard in on a roundup.”