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SARS Emergency Plan Dropped

MUDCAT FALLS -- The Calabash County Health Department has quietly dropped their emergency response plan to deal with an outbreak of Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome, known as SARS, that has plagued cities around the world. Although Board Chairman, Benjamin X. Byle, M.D., claimed that the imminent threat from the disease had waned, the plan had become controversial when the Department's contract for 7,000 miles worth of ICT 700 outdoor electronic containment systems with Invisible Fence of Pistol Creek Junction had been made public.

"I don't know what the big deal is here," said Arlan Hickstubble, President of Invisible Fence of Pistol Creek Junction. "We've been keeping dogs safe at home for over 25 years. We have over one million customers with a 98% customer satisfaction and I think we could have offered the same high quality level of service to protect our community from this international viral scourge."

The plan called for the homes of infected persons to be surrounded by an antenna system carrying signals from a transmitter in the basement or garage which would provide a warning tone when the infected person approached the edge of the safe area. When the system is challenged a correction likened to the sensation felt when walking across a carpet and touching a metal doorknob momentarily surprises the person and gets their attention. The correction may be uncomfortable and startling, but is not physically harmful to the individual.

"We simply do not have the medical facilities here in Calabash County to warehouse a significant number of infected persons," said Byle. "And we thought it would be more humane to quarantine people at home with their cable TV, than in a hospital isolation ward where forty or fifty people end up fighting over what channel to watch."

Homeless advocate Mitch Sickel, who lead a brief, but spirited protest at the steps of the County Administration Building, claimed the plan was but a first step on a slippery slope to a corporate "final solution" that would end with every homeless person wearing a dog collar to keep them from gathering in front of downtown merchants store fronts.

Hickstubble said that an unnamed Pistol Creek Junction councilman has expressed interest in the 7,000 miles of antenna to surround their city limits and keep Mudcat Falls residents from visiting. The main stumbling block to implementing the councilman's plan is how to get our citizens to wear the Computer Collars.



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