[Large scale war industry activites may bring real health problems or emergencies to any community.] [This film is designed to show how one such emergency was met in New York state.] Ten thousand acres in the heart of Seneca County were taken over by the federal government for the construction of a great ordinance depot. Word went out that contractors needed eight or nine thousand workmen. Seneca is not a populous county. Outside of the villages of Waterloo, which is the county seat, and Seneca Falls, the latest population figures give the rest of the county about 14,000 persons, so seekers for work came from various parts of New York and from other states. The center of attraction was the employment office, which was set up in the former Grange Hall in the little village of Kendaya. The normal population of Kendaya was 15 persons. There was a store and a church, a school, the Grange Hall, and three or four houses. Upon this village with 15 inhabitants descended some 300 men, women, and children who sought temporary homes near the employment office. And hundreds came seeking employment who didn’t know where they would live. At once health problems arose, too big for local health officials, or complicated by the absence of local health boards. So the state health department came to help. Here is the district sanitary engineer looking over the handiest well in the village. It is obviously bad, so the pump is discarded, the well inspected, and thoroughly chlorinated for protection if the water should be used. It is covered and posted with a warning sign. [Sign: Danger. Do Not Drink This Water] The next day the district state health officer and engineer find the porch of a deserted house is fast disappearing to make firewood for cooking breakfast. The cover has been removed from the well and various means have been devised to get the water up from the well. This in spite of the close proximity of a filthy privy. However, a test shows that, in spite of themselves, these migrant workers have been protected. Even if they drink the water, they will not be made ill, however unpleasant it may taste. Not a single well was found safe originally. But after improvements to the well in front of the schoolhouse, it yielded safe, though sometimes scant, water. Behind the employment office was a single, dilapidated insanitary privy used by men and women alike. Within easy swarming distance flies found the only restaurant, so called, a straw-carpeted tent with an old two-burner oil stove. Of course the privy was closed and generously treated with chlorate of lime. A new privy was set up exclusively for women, with a locked key available to women only, and new fly-proof screened privies for men were constructed. In the old schoolhouse was set up an immunization and child health clinic, in and from which worked the state nurses and doctors. The nurse visits a family living in an old school bus. Children are brought to the clinic for vaccination and immunization. Another nurse shows a mother how to protect whatever water she may have been able to get. But good water must be made available, so the state trucks safe water into the war project area. The truck was originally used to transport health education materials, but now it carries containers of safe water, which are set up at convenient locations. All over the entire area, health problems are to be met. Here is a squatter’s camp on nearby Seneca Lake, where are repeated all of the sanitary problems except that of water - cold water - for bathing. An enterprising individual in the nearby village of Ovid has rented the old schoolhouse and offers rooms for rent. [Sign: Rooms for men] They are small, but clean. They have new comfortable beds. Some of the beds are arranged in dormitories. Boarding houses spring up everywhere. This one, at the corners of Kendaya, accommodates from 12 to 26 persons at a time. But the problem of sanitation is just the same here as it is in a tent or trailer colony. And the old wells must be protected. The folks must have safe water. Yes, war industry activities make local health problems, which must be met promptly. The district state health officers seem to be the logical ones who organize the solution of these problems. He and his office went into hide to find the answers. No need to go into all the details of the negotiation. Suffice that by fall plans have been developed, approved, and put into operation whereby the Seneca County Fairgrounds at Waterloo became the site of a modern trailer camp. Trailers, furnished by the Farm Security Administration, were gathered from various parts of the country and set up on the Waterloo fairgrounds. Supplemented by private trailers, a trailer city soon took form and, fortunately for the workers and their families, was ready for occupancy well before the first snow fell. With the trailer city organized, now fell upon the district health office the task of handling the countless details connected with the mass movement of occupants. Evacuation notices had to be made out and served, and the whole administrative machinery set up for the miniature city. On a cheerless, cold, rainy day, the Waterloo trailer city was formally dedicated, with appropriate speeches by representatives of the Farm Security Administration, the United States Army, the State Department of Health, and the local civil administration. Residents of the community took an active interest. For example, the American Legion had a prominent part in the dedication. The chill winds, forerunner of the wintry days so close at hand, could not fail to make every worker present thankful for being able to leave the inadequate protection of billowing canvas for the cozy shelter of well-made trailers arranged in orderly lighted streets and avenues, comfortable inside, cozy by day, adequate by night. Warm with real cooking facilities. Good refrigeration and plenty of cupboard space. Sanitary requirements were supplied in central buildings -- laundry tubs, sinks, toilets with modern running water. Even shower baths, with good hot water. A far cry from what these folks found when they descended by thousands on the tiny, unprepared communities. And, outside the trailer city, nothing was neglected to provide adequate health protection. Inspection of wells continued everywhere workers gathered to live. Modest private capital set up new sanitary restaurants, which were the object of constant inspection and supervision. Health lessons were quickly learned and restaurant proprietors cooperated by installing some of the most efficient, modern equipment. Even the youngsters kept the spirit and junior police did really efficient work. Trailers did more than simply shelter workers and their families. Here’s one that served as a splendid child health clinic. Well-youngsters were kept well by frequent physical examinations -- and protected by vaccination. Buildings, too, in other parts of the territory were utilized for inoculation and general clinics. Everywhere, the state’s public health nurses helped in protecting the health, welfare, and happiness of these workers and their families. As a symbol of how one community handled the health problems brought to it by the great war activity, glance back at this discarded school bus, shared on successive nights by three families who slept in their automobiles on the other nights. And then glance at the community day-nursery conducted in the trailer city at Waterloo. Each day, one mother would care for the youngsters of the others, while their mothers went about their necessary work. Yes, war industry activities do create real health problems, but they can be, and are, being met. [The End]