The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has written a blog about preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse, a post which has become so popular that it is almost impossible at this time to access their blog. So, note to hackers: want to do a denial-of-service attack against a big government agency? Post something about zombies on their main page and it will happen organically.
All kidding aside, how awesome is this? Finally, the big government behemoth is learning a sense of humor, or at least some mid-level employee blogger does and managed to slip this one through the cracks– and it’s not even April 1st!.
Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan is the purported author of this post, which gives tongue in cheek suggestions for how to survive, which, coincidentally, are the same emergency preparedness steps you’d take in dealing with a hurricane, earthquake, or pandemic flu.
There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.
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First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house. This includes things like water, food, and other supplies to get you through the first couple of days before you can locate a zombie-free refugee camp (or in the event of a natural disaster, it will buy you some time until you are able to make your way to an evacuation shelter or utility lines are restored).
Once you’ve made your emergency kit, you should sit down with your family and come up with an emergency plan. This includes where you would go and who you would call if zombies started appearing outside your doorstep. You can also implement this plan if there is a flood, earthquake or other emergency.
Not a bad idea. I’ve often joked that I moved my house within a mile of a Cabela’s because it would be a great place to loot supplies in case of zombie apocalypse. However, Zombieland made me rethink that strategy- cuz that’s where they get you, ya know?
Anyway, consider the source, but Fox News spoke with CDC officials about the blog post and found it came out of recent concerns over the Fukushima disaster in Japan. (Personally I would have thought it would have begged the possibility of Godzilla attack rather than zombies, but zombies are so much more in vogue these days)
The idea behind the campaign stemmed from concerns of radiation fears following the earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan in March. CDC spokesman Dave Daigle told FoxNews.com that someone had asked CDC officials if zombies would be a concern due to radiation fears in Japan and traffic spiked following that mention.
“It’s kind of a tongue-in-cheek campaign,” Daigle said Wednesday. “We were talking about hurricane preparedness and someone bemoaned that we kept putting out the same messages.”
While metrics for the post are not yet available, Daigle said it has become the most popular CDC blog entry in just two days.
“People are so tuned into zombies,” he said. “People are really dialed in on zombies. The idea is we’re reaching an audience or a segment we’d never reach with typical messages.”
So, yay for government ingenuity. And next time some Tea Party bastard says government never did anything good for you, remind them the CDC is helping you get ready for the zombie apocalypse.