We begin our series on "Pandemic flu: 1918 and now". Mike Simonson and Michael Leland report.

Today's H1N1 flu is highly contagious. It's considered a worldwide pandemic. But it is mild compared to the Spanish Flu Pandemic which killed up to 40 million to 50 million people in 1918 and 1919. Wisconsin didn't escape the tragedy.

Autumn 1918 started out as a good time. The Great War was coming to an end, movie theaters were crowded, roller skating was popular. So were pool halls and amusement parks. But in September "The Spanish Flu" landed from war-torn Europe, spreading from coast to coast in a week.

Professor Steven Burg of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania wrote about that time for the Wisconsin Historical Society. He says the Spanish Flu ushered in an eery, tragic silence.

“Just about every form of public gathering aside from factories and industries came to a halt. The state health commissioner had the authority to shutdown public gatherings, so he shut down all the schools in the state, churches stopped meeting, during the election of 1918 there were no public speeches, no public rallies.”

This virus that spread like a wind-whipped grass fire made more than 100,000 people in Wisconsin sick. It started in Milwaukee on September 28 and didn't subside until Christmas. The State Board of Health called this pandemic "the most disastrous calamity ever visited upon the people of Wisconsin".

Burg says the pandemic hit so fast and so hard, that morgues overflowed, there weren't enough coffins, and hospitals ran out of space.

“There were a lot of public buildings and even wealthy people’s homes that were converted to hospitals so If I were to try to estimate, I would guess most people didn’t die in hospitals per se, but died either in the makeshift infirmaries or at home.”

Doctors and nurses were heroic but Burg says they were stretched to exhaustion. New Mexico State University History Professor Joan Jensen wrote the story of Lincoln County, Wisconsin Public Health Nurse Theta Meade. Nurses like Meade were the only medical help for many rural families.

“Rural people were strapped for cash so doctors didn’t want to get a chicken or some vegetables or something in payment. So there was this great drain of doctors who tended to move to the cities.”

The scars run deep for survivors. UW-Oshkosh Psychology Professor Susan McFadden collaborated in a 2001 study of the 1918 Pandemic. That included interviewing survivors.

“I remember talking to a man whose parents had died. The experience he had as a child being taken to live with an aunt and uncle. Another person up in Oconto who described looking out her door. She’s a little girl and she looked across the street and saw the black wreath on the door. And she knew that her best friend had died.”

Many people died at home. 96 year-old Genevieve Sanfelippo of Milwaukee lost her mother, grandmother, and two cousins in that three month pandemic.

“It was very trying and a six year old, seeing my mother in a casket with candles around her and I’d go up and I’d want to kiss her and they pulled me away and I said ‘Why is momma sleeping in the box? She should be in bed.’ So it was very hard to understand.”

The Spanish Flu eased by the end of 1918, but continued to claim victims into the Spring of 1919.

More than 8400 people died in Wisconsin from the 1918 Spanish Influenza outbreak. But the state's quick response might have kept things from getting worse.

From the first reports of Spanish Influenza in Milwaukee in late September, 1918, the virus quickly spread along railroad lines and highways. History professor Burg researched and wrote about the 1918 outbreak in a 2000 article for the Wisconsin Magazine of History.

"Once an outbreak would be in a particular area, people would wait for it to spread to their communities. There was a sense of dread, and in other places, a hope, desire, or optimism that their community would be spared."

But few communities were. By the end of December, more than 8400 people had died from influenza, or complications like pneumonia. Every county in Wisconsin was affected. Burg and others who've studied the outbreak say it could have been worse if not for the state's rapid response, and its public health infrastructure.

"Especially in Milwaukee, the Socialist Party and reformers in the city had been aggressive in trying to educate the public in trying to come up with effective measures for countering contagious disease and responding when outbreaks came."

Every community in the state had a local health board, and a health officer -- if only to act as a liason to the state in a time of crisis. The State Health Officer -- Cornelius Harper -- had what no other person in his position in any other state had at the time: the power to issue statewide orders. On October 10, Harper ordered all public institutions closed. That included churches, schools, movie theaters, taverns--everything.

Virologist Teri Shor at UW-Oshkosh co-authored a study on the 1918 outbreak. She says that proved to be the best thing for controlling the spread of the virus.

"Quarantine and isolation is critical. If the virus doesn't have a host, it can't spread."

The shutdown order stayed in effect for about two months. It didn't stop the sickness and death right away, but October was the peak month for new cases of the influenza.

Today, state health officials say we are a long way from even considering anything that drastic. Psychology professor Susan McFadden at UW-Oshkosh also worked on the study of the 1918 flu. She says a widescale shutdown of public facilities -- if needed at some point -- might be tougher to pull off today than it was 90 years ago.

"People in 1918 may have been more open to stopping their public meetings and closing things down and staying home. Today, a lot of people think they're immune and think they can gather in crowds anyway."

State officials say they're confident they can monitor and control the current H1N1 outbreak by combining some of what people did in 1918 with the better understanding we have of viruses today. Seth Foldy is Wisconsin's State Health Officer.

"In 1918, we barely knew what a virus was. In 2009, we are actually looking at the genetic code within several days of its first detection. But the practical problems of preventing spread from person to person are still very similar."

Foldy says things like washing your hands and staying home if you're sick are still good ways to help keep a virus from spreading. A vaccine for people in high risk groups, and careful monitoring of the virus' spread are expected to help health officials limit the severity of the H1N1 outbreak.

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