They've seen floods, and they've seen tornadoes in the southwest Georgia town of Albany. But, they'd seen nothing like COVID-19.
As of noon today, the state has 6,647 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. 686 of them are in Dougherty County, where Albany resides. There have been 30 deaths there. It's second to Fulton County which has 962 cases and 27 deaths.
Dougherty is a county of about 75,000 residents compared to Fulton with a population of more than 1 million.
"With a viral illness like this" says Dr. James Edward Black, "you just don't know when the end to the onslaught of cases is going to come."
Dr. Black is Medical Director of Emergency Services for Phoebe Putney Health Systems, which is located in Albany.
I've known "Eddie" since school, when we were classmates at Albany State University. It's his hometown. He returned to Albany almost 14 years ago when his father became ill. Dr. Billy C. Black was the University's President (1981-1996), and died in 2008.
Since medical school and time spent in the Navy, Dr. Black has taught disaster preparedness in and outside of the country. So, he was "acutely aware" of COVID-19. He tells me that on the local level, they'd "been paying close attention to it before it actually hit our shores."
The conversation, according to Black, had been centered around, "not necessarily if it could hit Albany, but when it hits how are we going to react?" Black adds, "I don't think we thought were were going to be spared", but they thought, he says, that they'd be somewhat geographically isolated.
The first case in Albany was a man from metro Atlanta who had traveled to Albany for a funeral. He was transferred to a Cobb County hospital where he later died. After several more deaths, health officials believe they've traced the origin back to two funerals held in the city.