The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta required all states to submit by Dec. 1 a plan outlining what steps will be taken in the event of a smallpox outbreak. The states, in turn, have requested reports from their municipal and regional public health directors by Dec. 15, since the burden of coping with an epidemic will fall largely on local shoulders.

The state Department of Health has divided Connecticut into 43 mass vaccination regions, each tasked with creating a plan to vaccinate as many as 100,000 people in 10 days.

Friday, North Central Health District Director William Blitz met with fire, police, medical, and town government officials from Enfield, Somers, Stafford, Suffield, and Windsor Locks at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield to discuss those towns' smallpox preparedness plans.

In the event of an epidemic, Blitz said, the community college would be set up as the area's vaccination clinic, in part because of easy accessibility and ample parking.

Three other towns - Vernon, Ellington, and East Windsor - in the North Central District will have a different clinic, Blitz said. That site has not yet been selected. Another town in the district, Windham, is part of the Eastern Highlands vaccination region.

Blitz said the federal government recommends the clinics operate in two eight-hour shifts, but he doubted whether that would be sufficient to immunize approximately 80,000 people.

"A 24-hour shift will probably be necessary," Blitz said.

Manchester Health Director Maryann Cherniak Lexius agreed.

"This isn't going to be enough," she said of the 16-hour day. "We can't shut doors on people."

In the event of such an emergency, Manchester, Glastonbury, and Andover will be joined as one vaccination region, with responsibility for immunizing roughly 90,000 people.

Lexius said the three towns would select a single clinic location by early this week.

Lexius stressed mass vaccinations were the last - and least likely - step in a federally prescribed three-stage process.

"This not about scaring people," she said. "It's a hard topic for people to hear about, but having a plan in place is the most efficient way to reduce panic."

According to state Department of Public Health spokesman William Gerrish, in a "Stage One" event, in which a small amount of smallpox is detected, roughly 6,000 people, primarily health care providers, would be immunized. In a "Stage Two" event, a larger infection would require the immunization of perhaps 125,000. Only in the third stage would a statewide emergency be declared, necessitating mass-vaccination clinics that would have to be up and running within 12 hours.

"We've been working for several months on bioterrorism," Gerrish said, "and this is just one aspect of strengthening our nation's defense against it."

In the event of mass vaccinations, volunteers would set up clinics and administer the shots. Clinics would use a smallpox vaccine dating back to the 1940s, but a new vaccine is being developed and may be ready by 2004, according to Blitz.

Smallpox, once among the world's most-feared diseases, was declared vanquished in 1981, although the CDC and the former Soviet Union each kept samples. The last large-scale vaccinations against the disease occurred in the 1970s.