When I first came across their website material, I thought
it must be a joke from an imposter site. But it’s for real: the U.S.
governments department dedicated to protecting us from every strange and
horrible disease in the world actually thought it was necessary to dedicate time,
money, man-hours, and website space to prepping us for the coming of
Zombieland. That means some department head and some politician and some
federal government actually signed off on this madness. Forget Ebola, Anthrax,
or nuclear war – let’s make our website fun and fan friendly by discussing
zombies. THAT decision is far more ponderous and disturbing than getting my
face ripped off on Planet Z.
Here are some excerpts from the CDC’s website:
“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.”
Damn, son – things just got real! They go on to document a
history of zombies including the Haitian voodoo origins, zombies in movies and
popular culture, and outline strategies how you, as a God-fearing, taxpaying
U.S. citizen, can best accommodate a zombie apocalypse.
They go on to suggest, “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 door step.”
Apparently, an evacuation route is so important because,
“When zombies are hungry they won’t stop until they get food (i.e., brains),
which means you need to get out of town fast!”
However, we should be rest easy at night because the CDC is
on the case, ready to step in and put in overtime once the zombies start
marching through Main Street.
Here’s what they say, ”If zombies did start roaming the
streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease
outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or
international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might
include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking
of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine).”
Wow, I feel SO much better about the whole affair! And of
course there are plenty of helpful resources the CDC is kind enough to offer
us, like the “Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic,” graphic novel we can download
for free, a CDC Zombie Task Force we can join (and pay for a t-shirt, with the
proceeds going to “benefit disaster relief efforts and other important health
programs. Get yours before they’re gone…”
Both the CDC and FEMA claim the zombie-themed material on
their websites should be taken tongue-in-cheek, as a few years ago they noticed
that mentioning the fantastical scenario of a zombie apocalypse garnered
exponentially more new visitors, especially a new audience of young people, to
their blogs and websites than all of their previous awareness campaigns,
combined.
In fact, when they first posted the zombie 101 material on
their website, 30,000 people read it in 10 minutes and crashed the site, and
since then they’ve gotten 60,000 views per hour. So it looks like all this
zombie talk on our own government agency’s website is just a publicity stunt, a
clever PR hoax, a parlor trick to get people educated about the real
emergencies – hurricanes, floods, and outbreaks of disease.
I don’t know man, I
don’t know. I think I’d rather be safe than sorry and I’ll start stocking up on
duct tape and batteries for when flesh-eating zombies ring my doorbell.
