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Show COAST FEARS EPIDEMIC NOW LOS ANGELES, Jan. 3 (II.W Authorities moved swiftly today to protect more than 2,000,000 residents resi-dents of Los Angeles county from the danger of disease or epidemic, which, as a remote possibility, it was feared might follow a New Year's cloudburst and flood which took at least two score lives. County Health Officer J. L. Pomeroy established a field office, where free immunization against disease, principally typhoid, was offered. City and county health officials broadcast instructions to boil all water used for drinking purposes. All reservoirs supplying the city with water were chlorinated. These precautions were taken in spite of the fact that not a single case of disease had been reported. Authorities pointed out that the vast run-off had poured into reservoirs res-ervoirs thousands of acre feet of water which had flowed over unguarded un-guarded and uninspected land. Sources of possible contamination, they said, were many. The known dead were counted at 39 this morning. Nine others were missing and feared almost certainly certain-ly dead. To this toll names occasionally oc-casionally were added from the list of 66 unreported. Many bodies, it was feared, never Would be recovered. Transients, Trans-ients, unlikely to be reported miss-I miss-I ing, it was feared might have been buried in the debris. Among those known to be missing, miss-ing, the bodies of some almost certainly were washed to sea or buried beneath imponderable tons of debris, officials said. Ordinarily a dry arroyo, the Los Angeles river at the height of the flood was a raging torrent sweeping through the coastal plain to the sea. How many bodies were carried car-ried on its crest to the ocean probably never will be known. |