The River: Corona virus also a concern on inland waters; travel on Mississippi River being monitored

The riverboat captain is a storyteller, and Captain Don Sanders will be sharing the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.

By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune

No matter what else I might want to write about the river this week, I would be remiss if the impending spread of the Corona Virus (COVID-19) wasn’t the topic.

Already, from the incessant bombardment by the news media, almost everyone realizes that ocean cruise ships visiting specific Chinese ports became incubators for the new, viral disease. As I sit and peck at my keyboard, the headline in USA TODAY reads:

“Thousands may have been exposed to coronavirus on Princess cruise ship; 62 passengers confined.”

I would be remiss if the impending spread of the Corona Virus (COVID-19) wasn’t the topic.

The online newspaper added, “Thousands of people on Princess Cruises’ GRAND PRINCESS may have been exposed to coronavirus after sailing with 62 passengers who company officials say had previously been on a voyage with a man who eventually died from the virus.”

On the inland waters of the Mississippi River System, my beat, the burgeoning riverboat day and overnight passenger boats are just gearing up for the start of the 2020 cruise season. Many of them are, only now, trolling for crew members. COVID-19 has yet to reach the inland riverboats. But like many health and government officials warn:

“It’s not a matter of if, but when.”

According to a post by the seasoned cruise traveler and former crewman aboard the DELTA QUEEN and the BELLE of LOUISVILLE, Mr. Francis X. “Frank” Prudent, cruise line officials and the United States Coast Guard are monitoring travel on the Mississippi River.

Thousands of people on Princess Cruises’ GRAND PRINCESS may have been exposed to coronavirus.

One company operating overnight accommodations on the river is prohibiting the boarding of passengers who have traveled to and from Iran, the Republic of Korea, and China, including Hong Kong and Macau, a city on the Pearl River in southern China within two weeks before embarkation on the homegrown rivercraft.

Cleanliness, always a matter of prime importance when many people are crowded together in limited spaces, such as passenger-vessels, is more critical now than ever before. Sanitation on the cruise boats is an obsession as it was a few years ago aboard my last command, the GRAND VICTORIA II casino boat at Rising Sun, Indiana, when an anticipated influenza outbreak had everyone rattled. Hand sanitizing dispensers were stationed everywhere aboard my paddlewheeler, even next to the condiments by the snack bar. Who could forget the emergency call to the pilothouse when an unsuspecting customer liberally coated his hot dog with hand-cleaning gel and then ate it? Only after finishing his “tube-steak” sandwich did the patron think to report mistaking the clear, alcohol-based, hand-sanitizer for the yellow mustard. My housekeepers promptly removed the cleaning gel dispenser from the condiment table. And after accepting a couple of free buffet comps where the selection of entrees outshone those in the snack bar, made the patron comment,

“You know… that hotdog didn’t taste too bad.”

According to the seasoned cruise traveler and former crewman aboard the DELTA QUEEN and the BELLE of LOUISVILLE, Mr. Francis X. “Frank” Prudent, cruise line officials and the United States Coast Guard are monitoring travel on the Mississippi River. 

The busy Port of New Orleans with ships arriving from all over the world is always a concern when it comes to the health and safety of the country. The Coast Guard, local, and Louisiana state functionaries have similar precautionary measures in place to combat the COVID-10 outbreak should, and likely when, it slips quietly into the Mississippi River entryway of the heartland of the United States. My longtime pal from the DELTA QUEEN Steamboat Company, the celebrated hero of the “BRIGHTFIELD Incident,” when, according to the results of the official U. S. Coast Guard report, “his actions saved many lives,” Captain Joseph Theodore “Ted” Davisson, assured all those interested that he and his fellow ship pilots of the New Orleans – Baton Rogue Pilots Association (NOBRA) are “following all Coast Guard protocol to ensure crews and products remain safe.” Cap’n Ted also reminded everyone,

“No matter who or what you are… just wash your hands.”

Sanitation is an obsession as it was a few years ago aboard my last command, the GRAND VICTORIA II when an anticipated influenza outbreak had everyone rattled.

As the dread of a possible COVID-19 epidemic terrifies the nation, including the Mississippi Systems of Rivers, while counting the Ohio and Licking at the top of the list, I remind myself of earlier pandemics that struck horror into a younger nation when steamboats, not subsonic jetliners, were the fastest modes of transportation.

The first major epidemic of cholera occurred in the West, as the region of the Mississippi and tributaries was known in 1832. The disease came by ships sailing from the Atlantic seaboard by way of Europe and into the interior via the Great Lakes, reaching the Ohio River on canal boats from Cleveland and Portsmouth and the Mississippi from Chicago and the Illinois River. “The disease became epidemic and spread rapidly, moving down to New Orleans and returning by way of steamboats moving up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to meet the infection coming down from Cincinnati,” according to river historian Louis C. Hunter. The mortality rate for cholera was exceptionally high in the large cities, Cincinnati lost 732 souls; while in St. Louis, 500 perished.

After a few outbreaks following the 1832-1835 pandemic, the next major onslaught didn’t happen until 1849. That was the year after the celebrated series of eight photographs taken by Charles Fontayne and William S. Porter of the Cincinnati city front and the steamboats waiting there, known as the “Cincinnati Panoramic Daguerreotype of 1848.” Ironically, streams of open, raw sewage, which likely contributed to the upcoming cholera eruption, is evident in at least one daguerreotype image.

The celebrated series of eight photographs taken by Charles Fontayne and William S. Porter of the Cincinnati city front and the steamboats waiting there, is known as the “Cincinnati Panoramic Daguerreotype of 1848.”

“In the 1849–51 outbreak, St. Louis lost 4,557 and Cincinnati 5,969. In each outbreak, deaths totaled 5–10% of the population. Great as the losses were, the life of the larger cities went on, staggered for a while, but went on. Their business suffered but recovered,” Walter J. Daly, MD wrote in an abstract prepared for the Journal of the American Clinical and Climatological Society, in 2008.

Small towns suffered proportionately more severely than the larger cities. Aurora, Indiana some twenty-six miles downriver from Cincinnati where my sternwheeler, the Rafter CLYDE, now calls home, boasted a population of 2,000 in 1849.

“On June 14,” as recorded in a report to the Indiana State Medical Society, dated 1853, “there were 14 deaths in Aurora despite great efforts to purify the air by fires burning at street crossings, and a cannon fired every 25 minutes for 4–5 hours. Fifty-one more died over the next three weeks. Sixteen-hundred of the 2,000 residents fled the town. Fright must have been the chief cause of flight. Perhaps they were driven out by the fear that it was the local air that carried the disease. One-hundred-twenty-two died in the town; there were 13 deaths among the 1,600 who fled.”

There were 14 deaths in Aurora despite great efforts to purify the air by fires burning at street crossings.

It is best to remember that the two cholera epidemics of 1832 and 1859 happened when most learned people believed that miasmas or “noxious bad air” caused diseases such as cholera.

That belief is the reason my ancestral townsmen fired cannons and burned fires on the street corners in Aurora only 111 years before my birth. Those folks in 1832 were no less frightened about the consequences of their invisible assailants than we are today, facing the onslaught of a disease we only know is caused by a microscopic coronavirus.  At this time, however, we are nearly as ill-equipped to eradicate the cause as our ancestors were to drive off the miasmatic airs they believed spawned their brand of plague.

Wash your hand thoroughly and often, stay away from crowds, and keep at least six feet away from strangers. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze and try as hard as you possibly can to keep your hands away from your face – especially your eyes, nose, and mouth. Perhaps, even your ears.

Despite what a few strictly science-only advocates have said, a few earnest prayers at this time of uncertainty, long after all the disposable gloves and facemasks disappeared off every store shelf in America, won’t hurt.

God Bless Us All.

Cap’n Ted also reminded everyone, “No matter who or what you are… just wash your hands.” 

Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian, and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune and will share his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.