The valley, bluntly, is not ready.

"We don't mean to paint a doom-and-gloom picture," Gary Edwards, executive director of the Salt Lake Valley Health Department, told the County Council on Tuesday. "But it could be quite serious."

For starters, some 300,000 people probably would fall ill, Edwards estimates, while the county is 27,000 hospital beds shy. What's more, 50 percent of employees would be too ill to work during an outbreak - 30 percent of health-care providers would themselves be too ill to help - while vaccinations are proving prohibitive to stockpile at a cost of $72 per person.

"We don't have enough to vaccinate everybody in the county," Edwards warned.

But health officials are hustling to hone the details of an emergency plan designed to guide bureaucracies in the event such a pandemic strikes Utah.

The key, Edwards emphasized, is communication. Already, health experts have conducted a series of "mini-summits" with faith-based outlets, business groups, health clinics and school districts to lay the framework for a pandemic-flu protocol.

"We've got to be on the same page," Edwards said.

One snag: How can politicians define the trigger for an unprecedented - and unlikely - event.

During Chicago's recent killer heat wave, Councilman Michael Jensen noted, it was difficult for response teams to distinguish between a hot, humid spell and a full-fledged emergency.

"That's the real hard part for the policymakers," said Jensen, who is also deputy chief of the Unified Fire Authority. "There's no real bomb that went off."

To be sure, the clearest signals are the most morbid, officials note. It would be a bona fide pandemic, for instance, if both the hospitals - and the morgues - overload.

One practical challenge in a flu outbreak would be how to winnow a working population to keep the sickest in treatment, others at home and enough people healthy to keep society functioning.

Edwards suggests government agencies outline who would be essential and nonessential employees in such an event.

Another challenge: infringing on human rights, legal rights or both. Edwards says officials are juggling how to define jurisdiction under state law when it comes to everything from restricting travel and closing schools to isolation and quarantine.

And, laments Councilman Randy Horiuchi, the county faces a dilemma with fewer than 4,000 hospital beds. "It seems like that's a pretty dang, big gap," said Horiuchi, who also wonders how officials can guarantee clean water and prevent looting during a crisis.

Even with a good guide and training, Jensen cautions, it is difficult to prepare for a pandemic's warning signs.

"I don't know if you can plan for them all."

djensen@sltrib.com

Pandemic flu by the numbers:

ä PROJECTIONS SHOW 295,900 would fall ill in Salt Lake County.

ä BETWEEN 690 AND 6,300 probably would die.

ä ABOUT 30,000 hospital beds would be needed (there are roughly 3,000 now).

Source: Salt Lake Valley Health Department