WASHINGTON — Pandemic illnesses are not just something out of a Stephen King novel but a real possibility for which local communities need to prepare and plan, Health and Human Service Secretary Mike Leavitt said Tuesday.

Leavitt spoke at the U.S. News and World Report Health Summit, which focused on emergency preparedness and planning at the National Press Club.

"We don't know what the next one will be, and we don't know when it will be," he said. "What we do now will be dramatically important if it occurs."

Leavitt said pandemic diseases are difficult to discuss because anything said prior to an outbreak can be considered "alarmist" and anything said after "seems inadequate," so his job is to find a balance between the two. He said the country is "overdue and underprepared" for a serious outbreak and reminded an audience made up of many in the health industry professionals.

"Pandemics are a fact of life," Leavitt said. "Any community that fails to prepare with the expectation that the state or federal government can come to their aid will be tragically wrong. There is no way you can respond to every hometown at the same time."

Leavitt, a former three-term Utah governor, used research from his hometown of Cedar City during the 1918 flu outbreak that killed millions across the country, to illustrate that pandemics are just not about people getting sick but how it alters everyday living.

He said he found old news clippings about the banning of all public gatherings and people being forced to wear gauze masks to help control the spread of the illness.

"It touched every hometown in America," he said. Leavitt encouraged people to put "Spanish Flu" and their hometown name into an Internet search engine to see how it was affected.

"We learned powerful lessons from (Hurricane) Katrina, that what you do in advance is more important," he said. "Even if it does not happen soon we will be a healthier and stronger nation."

The White House issued a federal plan for a pandemic flu last November, and Leavitt said it continues to work on communication plans, international and domestic monitoring, and ways to develop and store vaccines.

Within the coming weeks, the White House will be making an implementation plan public about how the U.S. government will operate in case of a pandemic public, according to the press office. The plan will be an overview of the roles the U.S. government agencies will have in the event of an outbreak as well as what business and individuals can do to stop the spread of disease.

The latest information on the government's plans for a pandemic can be found at www.pandemicflu.gov.

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