Outbreak of illness closes Camp Orkila, sends children home
As of last night, some three dozen remained quarantined at the camp. The rest were taken by a chartered ferry back to Anacortes.
Many who left the camp yesterday weren't among the sick. They walked off the ferry strong, tan and smiling, making faces for the TV cameras and wondering what all the fuss was about. "I wasn't really worried," said Ben Meyer, 14, who starts as a freshman at Burlington High School in the fall.
He was on a Camp Orkila bicycle trip around Orcas Island when eight other campers started vomiting. "I kinda wanted to bike back to camp because it was all downhill," Meyer said. "That was kind of a bummer."
Meyer's mother, Ann, picked her son up at the ferry dock. "I looked Norwalk up on the Internet and it didn't look too serious," she said. "I wasn't nervous. They said it was just a bug."
In all, YMCA officials said 140 children fell ill with what appears to be the Norwalk virus, a gastrointestinal sickness that causes vomiting, diarrhea, fever and abdominal pain.
YMCA officials did not know how many staff members also fell ill. The outbreak forced the shutdown of the entire camp two days before campers were scheduled to leave. The YMCA said there were 360 children at the camp, which hosts 3,000 campers every summer.
Officials said they haven't done tests yet to determine whether the illnesses were caused by Norwalk.
The Washington State Ferry system dedicated a ship, the M/V Chelan, to transport the children from Orcas Island to the mainland.
Children who did not display symptoms of the illness rode in the passenger section of the ferry. They were not allowed near the food galley, and they were restricted to using one set of men's and women's bathrooms. Some were picked up by their parents at the Anacortes ferry dock, but most rode in chartered buses back to Seattle.
Many of the children showing symptoms were picked up by their parents at Orkila. They were asked to stay in their parents' cars during the ferry ride. About three dozen children whose parents could not be reached by camp officials remained quarantined at the camp.
The outbreak started when one child who was already infected arrived at camp Monday, said Monica Elenbaas, spokeswoman for the YMCA of Greater Seattle. The child already had spent hours traveling and playing with other campers before symptoms started to show.
The camper was taken to the camp infirmary Monday, but not before the virus had spread to others, Elenbaas said. The virus takes a day or two to show its symptoms, so the camp doctor didn't know until Friday that a suspected Norwalk outbreak had struck, Elenbaas said.
Realizing that the infirmary would be overwhelmed by the number of patients, the doctor took over the camp's conference center Friday and turned it into a quarantine. The state ferry system was contacted Friday night, and the agency's leaders decided to dedicate an entire ship to evacuating the children. No other passengers were allowed on the boat.
"We had a few complaints, but most people realized that it was children we're talking about here," said Patricia Patterson, spokeswoman for the Washington State Ferries.
Workers boarded the Chelan after it docked in Anacortes and cleaned all the areas where the children had been. The ferry was back in service for the 2:45 run, leaving ferry service in the San Juans running about half an hour late, Patterson said.
Norwalk affects 23 million Americans each year. The virus occurs when fecal matter contaminates food or water, often when people don't wash their hands properly after using the restroom, then touch something that others later put in their mouths. The virus can be transmitted by close contact with infected persons or the things they have touched.
People with the virus tend to start showing symptoms one to two days after they are infected, and the symptoms tend to last one to three days. The virus causes no long-term health problems.
Camp Orkila is the oldest camp in the Northwest, said Elenbaas, and was founded on Orcas Island in 1906. The camp expects to host a family camp over Labor Day weekend.
Chris Maag: (206) 464-8450 or cmaag@seattletimes.com.