The county has been preparing for the likelihood of a pandemic flu before perhaps $125,000 in state funding comes down the pike to aid it.

It's not because the county believes a pandemic flu will strike soon -- although it's possible -- but because preparing for the flu is a strategy that officials say could also prepare the county for natural disasters or any other crisis that could affect local hospitals.

Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Smith has led an effort to prepare for the likelihood that, sometime in the future, a flu virus unlike any Napa County resident's immune system will have seen before will come along and make many residents ill -- and on a scale that the annual flu season can only dream of.

"We haven't had a pandemic in a long time, so in a way we're overdue," she said. "But it's a lot like gambling. Just because you haven't had a jackpot in a long time doesn't mean you'll get one."

According to the state budget, the state approved $17.4 million in pandemic flu preparedness money to be sent to local counties, but the exact amount hasn't been determined and the relevant bureaucratic wrangling to dispense the money haven't been completed yet. Smith said Napa County may see as much as $125,000 before long.

Smith said the county's efforts may help prepare area hospitals to better function during crises.

"It's working with hospitals to say, 'OK, if you have suddenly two-thirds more patients than you have, how are you going to deal with that?'" Smith said. "'Especially when some of your staff is going to be sick or home caring for sick family members.'"

Lois Husted, Queen of the Valley Hospital's emergency management coordinator, said the hospital has plans in place to make sure the outbreak has minimal effect on employees.

The hospital has protective equipment on hand and a plan to educate employees to keep them from infecting themselves and family members.

"Once that first (infection) hits that's going to put a lot of wheels in motion," she said.

If the hospital is deluged with patients, it can call up reserves of nurses through its own on-call system or a county list, Husted said.

Neal O'Haire, county emergency services manager, said pandemic flu preparations could also provide the county health care system with a test scenario that will prepare it for natural disasters like earthquakes and floods.

"We're treating it as any other emergency," he said. "We're setting it up like we would respond to a flood or earthquake and we're setting it up as a potential response to pandemic flu."

If a vaccine to a pandemic flu becomes available, O'Haire said, there is a plan to set up a warehouse in Napa to distribute the vaccine.

Plus, public education would play a large part in flu preparedness, letting people know what behavior would place them in jeopardy of infection.

"What is what I like to think of as a rational level of fear?" Smith said.

The risk of pandemic flu is much more than that of the well-publicized avian flu that has affected Asia -- and may or may not strike the U.S. -- it can be any flu virus that has the punch to make large numbers of people sick, much more than the standard flu season.

Pandemic flu viruses swept the country in 1918 and the 1960s. While the Spanish Flu of 1918 had devastating effects -- killing more people than died due to World War I -- Smith said the pandemics of the 1960s didn't cause much more harm than the normal flu season.

The type of threat a pandemic provides depends largely on the virus, which must be substantially different than the annual flu mutation that causes the flu season.

"You get a very different flu virus circulating around the globe to which very few people have immunity," Smith said. It may also have no vaccine.

The most publicized pandemic flu risk on the horizon is avian flu, which has reportedly made more than 200 people sick in Asia.

Smith said scientists figure that infected Asian birds could intermix with American migratory flocks and bring the virus to the U.S. But even still, Smith said the virus must develop a way to transmit from person to person, not just bird to human. She said scientists weren't certain enough about migratory patterns to say for sure whether the Asian virus would strike U.S. birds.

Plus, Americans do not maintain flocks of poultry with the same close contact that some Asian countries' farmers do, making it difficult for the virus to spread from bird to human in the U.S.

"Right now while the avian flu virus can infect humans, it does not do so easily," Smith said.

Yet current predictions about avian flu could change soon.

This week, scientists began testing two wild swans found on the shore of Lake Erie, which are suspected of having a version of the avian flu. It could reportedly take up to two weeks before the results are in.