If a pandemic flu were to strike Haverhill, Mayor James J. Fiorentini wants to be sure the city is prepared to do more than wait for help.

''There would be nobody to come," Fiorentini said, noting the scarcity of resources likely to be available for any one community if a deadly flu were to sweep across the state or country.

Fiorentini said that message -- cities and towns must develop their own contingency plans for dealing with a potential pandemic -- was delivered by federal health officials at a recent meeting of the US Conference of Mayors. And it is one he is taking to heart.

The mayor recently established a pandemic flu task force to develop a plan within 60 days on how the city would respond if it were hit by a fast-spreading strain of a deadly influenza virus.

While heightened concern about avian flu is spurring the initiative, Fiorentini said, the plan would pertain to any pandemic flu crisis. Haverhill is not alone in trying to prepare itself for such a disaster.

Local officials in a number of other cities and towns in the region said last week that they recognize the need to engage in planning for a pandemic flu. And some of it is already happening.

''We've been talking about it," said Melrose Mayor Robert J. Dolan. There have been discussions among the Board of Health, emergency management director, officials from Melrose-Wakefield Hospital, and others, he said, but ''we have to formalize it a little more."

Mayor Thatcher W. Kezer III of Amesbury said an emergency management group has looked at how the city can prepare for a pandemic. He said he is now hoping to spur discussion about how area communities can help one another with such public health emergencies.

The need for a regional response will be the topic of a meeting of officials from several area communities next month. Organized by Kezer, it is slated for April 6 at Anna Jacques Hospital in Newburyport.

''Obviously, issues like the avian flu are pushing us to work faster and harder in getting this organized," he said.

In Wakefield, Town Administrator Thomas P. Butler said the Board of Selectmen has asked him to request a report from the town's health agent on what Wakefield should be doing to prepare.

Beverly's Mayor William F. Scanlon Jr. said he shares the belief that flu-preparedness planning is needed, but he said, ''I really think the coordination has to come from the state level. . . . I expect they will be giving us information and instructions."

Donna Rheaume, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Health, said her agency actively encourages cities and towns to plan for the possibility of a flu outbreak.

''The important thing is that the local communities are thinking about this," she said. ''Our goal is to be as prepared as we can be, and we think of this as a process, not a product."

Since 2003, avian influenza has sickened 177 people and has killed 98 around the world, according to the World Health Organization.

Until this year, all the human cases involving avian flu were reported to have been in Asia, but there is concern that migrating birds could carry the virus to the United States.

The Department of Public Health in 2003 divided the state into regions for the purpose of planning for public health emergencies, according to Mary Clark, who coordinates the effort in a 27-community block that includes Chelsea, Everett, Revere, and Winthrop.

In her region, the effort has included working with communities to ensure that their overall emergency response plans address the pandemic flu and other public health disasters.

Clark said a task force such as Haverhill's ''is one good way of getting everyone around the table that needs to be there."

Noting that most people don't remember the last major flu pandemic, in 1918, Clark said ''a lot of education has to go on to let people know what impact a major pandemic could have and to start planning for all the parts of life it would affect."

She said local public health officials are beginning to make those contingency plans and ''are bringing in their public safety partners and town administrators and others who would need to be involved in any response to a pandemic flu."

The Revere health agent, Nicholas Catinazzo, said his city has identified sites that could be used to dispense medicine during a pandemic. Revere also carried out a drill in which a network of volunteers who have agreed to help in such an emergency were contacted through an automated phone message delivery system, he said.

Dr. Carl Rosenbloom, a pediatrician and chairman of the Haverhill Board of Health, is a member of the pandemic flu task force convened by Fiorentini.

In a pandemic, he said, every community ''is going to need to maintain itself from the point of view of public services -- health, . . . food and water.

''What we are trying to do," he said, ''is get together a group of people . . . to coordinate efforts."

''The ultimate goal is how to continue to operate as a city with 20 to 40 percent fewer employees," said James Michitson, Haverhill's emergency management director and a task force member, ''because they are telling us that is how many are going to get sick. Every department is going to have to have their own operational plan."

He said the group will also seek to educate the public about ''what to do and where to listen." Like Fiorentini, Michitson sees the city as potentially having to fend for itself in the event of a pandemic.

''We are going to be all alone. . . . So we have to figure out what we are going to do if the federal, state or any other community can't come to help us," he said.

What do you think?

What do you believe your government should be doing to prepare for a potential avian flu pandemic? Is enough being done? Should the state and federal government be providing more assistance? To give your view, log on to www.boston.com/northtalk. Or write to globenorth@globe.com or to Globe North, One Corporate Place, 55 Ferncroft Road, Danvers, MA 01923.