Smallpox 2002: Silent Weapon

Kathleen O'Reilly:
We used to believe that the greatest threat to the United States were the nuclear arsenals of a rogue state, but in this world today, a terrorist with the will to sacrifice his own life, armed only with a penknife and a pilot's license, is capable of anything... The greatest threat, as we now know, is a single individual with a $50 chemistry set and the will to decimate the planet.

Narrator:
In 2002, 60 million people worldwide were killed by a disease no one had seen for over 20 years. It was the greatest act of mass murder in history.

Jack Hill:
As the dead increased, it became apparent that we weren't going to be able to deal with it in a conventional manner in the city morgues. So, we decided to take over Governor's Island and turn it into a morgue. And we took Army issue, air conditioned tents, and every morning when the bodies were collected from the hospitals, they were taken to Governor's Island and laid out. And we filled one tent, and then we filled another tent, and then we filled another tent. And that's what we did with the dead.

Jack Hill:
[describing New York City at the height of the smallpox pandemic] It was a ghost town, I mean in more ways than one, it was a ghost town. The corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, you could have shot a cannon in any direction, and you'd have hit no one. It was empty. It's kind of hard to explain, but it made me realize what an incredible loss we had experienced.