The Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District served more than a million homes, businesses, and weed-infested lots under its assignment to defend the citizenry from contagions. In its mission, it deployed pickup trucks to explore underground storm drains; jeeps fitted with plow blades to attack concrete channels where those drains dumped trash; a squadron of “sentinel chickens,” flocks of fowl scattered around the county that waited to be infected and warn us of invasion. The inspectors were like a special ops team that few know about, fighting daily to save Los Angeles from a deadly outbreak that could kill us all.

Från Everything Now av Rosecrans Baldwin.