Coronavirus in rural America (Part VI): Small-town grit and preparedness in Oklahoma

Annie Gowan and Juliet Eilperin report for the Washington Post out of Bristow, Oklahoma under the headline, "Small town battled coronavirus on its own, as outbreak spread in a red state."

Epidemiologist Mark Brandenburg saw the threat months ago: The data coming out of China signaled that this could be "the pandemic we had feared for a long time."

The chief medical officer of a small hospital in this town of 4,200 people, Brandenburg didn't wait for orders from the federal government or direction from the statehouse. By mid-February, he had launched a citizens' response team to prepare the community for the novel coronavirus's arrival. Local leaders organized a phone chain. Teams of teenagers and college students were formed to deliver groceries to seniors.

Long before schools around the country started closing their doors, the Bristow school system readied a program to feed kids if it shut down — a must in a city with a 25 percent poverty rate.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) was resisting health officials' recommendations to close schools and restaurants and was allowing medical centers to continue elective procedures, even as other hospitals reported shortages of masks and protective equipment.

The story quotes Brandenburg, a veteran of Hurricane Katrina and the Oklahoma City bombing:

There was no guidance on how small towns should prepare well in advance. And my experience allowed me to know this and get in early and get our town up and running.

Bristow is in Creek County and part of the Tulsa Metro area. 

Other stories about small towns and small cities being hit hard by the coronavirus crisis are here (noting Greenville, MS and Pine Bluff, AR, among others), here (Springfield, Oregon), and here (Albany, Georgia).