Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse

"Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse" is a blog post made in May 2011 by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that uses a zombie apocalypse to raise public awareness of emergency preparedness. In a blog post titled "Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse", the director of the CDC's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, Rear Admiral Ali S. Khan writes: "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." Comparing the upcoming hurricane season and possible pandemics to "flesh-eating zombies" from the horror film Night of the Living Dead and the video game series Resident Evil, Khan recommends Americans prepare for natural disasters as they would have prepared for "ravenous monsters". The blog post was part of a larger zombie-themed campaign retired by mid-2022 and replaced with the Prep Your Health CDC website.

Inspiration

A week before the zombie apocalypse post, members of the CDC group responsible for preparedness of the public for natural disasters and pandemics were working on the message anticipating the 2011 hurricane season. == Blog post ==

Blog post

The CDC's blog post included precautionary tips about zombies along with its usual tips for preparing an emergency kit, as well as emergency escape routes in case of an earthquake or hurricane. For example, after explaining how the public should be prepared "if zombies started appearing outside your doorstep", it continues: "You can also implement this plan if there is a flood, earthquake, or other emergency." == CDC website crash ==

CDC website crash

The blog post generated Internet traffic that eventually crashed the CDC website. Usually, CDC blog posts get traffic between 1,000 and 3,000 hits per week. 60,000 hits were reported by the evening of May 18. The post, oriented at "a young, media-savvy demographic", was read by so many that "by Thursday, it was a trending topic on Twitter". Initially the tweet with the tagline ''If you're ready for a zombie apocalypse, then you're ready for any emergency'' got 12,000 followers; overnight the number of followers increased to 1.2 million, or 100 times the initial number. Mr. Daigle commented that the number of followers of the CDC's zombie apocalypse tweets was comparable to the number of followers of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton: "We were trending yesterday! Things like the Royal Wedding trend. Not the CDC." Robert Pestronk, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, agreed that "The 'Zombie Apocalypse' scenario [was] a great way of getting information out so people can understand the need for preparedness". == Reaction ==

Reaction

Daigle said people were visiting the CDC's blog and following CDC tweets because they were mostly interested in zombies and were asking what weapons the agency would recommend to fight zombies. Khan's response to this inquiry was, "remember, we're a public-health center, so we're not going to recommend weapons. We'll leave that to the law-enforcement folks." A few days later, a tongue-in-cheek exchange ensued in the Canadian House of Commons between MP Pat Martin and Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, referring to the zombie preparedness plans in Quebec and the United States. The exchange drew international media attention. == Video contest ==

Video contest

The CDC announced a contest for the most creative and effective videos covering preparedness for a zombie apocalypse or apocalypse of any kind. In this video contest, the CDC challenged contestants to upload videos to YouTube demonstrating how they are preparing for emergency situations such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and zombie attacks. == Graphic novel ==

Graphic novel

}} In October 2011, the CDC published a Zombie Pandemic graphic novella written and created by Maggie Silver, with help from fantasy artist Bob Hobbs (layouts, pencils and inks), Alissa Eckert (coloring) and Mark Conner (lettering, assembly). == Analyzing results ==

Analyzing results

The CDC is planning to run a survey to find out how many of the blog's readers actually followed the tips and made recommended preparations for natural disasters, zombie attacks and other emergency situations. == See also ==

Source: Wikipedia ↗

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