When the bird flu hits, as it enevitably will,

It already has.

what will you do about your pets who pick up dead birds?

Don't have any pets.

about dead birds in the pool

Don't have any pool.

about your kids with flu like symptoms

Don't have kids, either.

But if I had any of the above I can't see running around screaming about it. You assume that ALL dead birds will be dead of H5N1, which will no more be the case in the event of a pandemic than it is now. If a pandemic did hit, the city would close the aquatic complex -- not because of dead birds, but because of the danger inherent in groups. READ ABOUT THE 1918 PANDEMIC!! LEARN FROM HISTORY!!! Gatherings, even church gatherings, were banned (or in some cases held outdoors). Many people wore surgical masks, not to stop the "germs" but to prevent coughed-up droplets from infecting others. Most cities had "no spitting" ordinances on the books and enforced them. But the trains and buses and streetcars still ran, food was still available, and life went on.

But the ONE THING that any reading of the history of the 1918 pandemic shows is that national and big-city governments were not prepared and in fact were in a state of denial. New York city, for instance. The Surgeon General of the US. The US War Department, which wouldn't stop transfering troops around the country and thereby spreading the disease.... And by the way, the 1918 pandemic apparently started in a rural county in Kansas -- it did not start in Spain.