Why Should You Prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse

Several American cities have recently staged massive practice exercises to train their law enforcement and emergency medical personnel how to respond in disaster situations. Many of these sessions have focused on containing highly infectious diseases and neutralizing the effects of biological weaponry; consequently, some cities refer to these disaster practices as “Zombie Apocalypse Day.”

Even the CDC is advising you to prepare!

Consequences of Ineffective Preparation

Nobody wants to suffer the ill effects of an epidemic or dirty bomb; however, it’s unwise to ignore the possibility and, consequently, preparation for events that will hopefully not happen. It’s crucial that disaster responders understand how to reduce the spread of biological agents; without such knowledge, well intentioned people may actually make the problem worse. Individuals who haven’t prepared are also less likely to have emergency supplies to help them cope; it’s wise to have canned food, nuts, dried fruit, spare bottles of water (at minimum, one gallon per person per day) and a comprehensive first aid kit. This holds true for ANY disaster – why not make the odds of survival as favorable as possible?

Stemming Infections

The zombie apocalypse problem has two parts. First, medical professionals, law enforcement, military personnel and civilians need to know how to act to minimize the spread of any dangerous disease. According to zombie lore, the zombie “virus” is spread through bites. While human bites ARE dangerous, most serious, highly infectious diseases are spread through air, blood, water or a combination thereof. It’s very important to know how to avoid contamination for as long as possible.

Survival Skills

The second part of the zombie apocalypse equation is survivalism. Let’s say that one fine day most of the folks in your city get killed by the creeping crud. You’ve paid attention in the first half of your zombie training and have remained healthy – but now you’ve got to survive without police, doctors, food purveyors, gas station attendants, and pretty much everyone else. Sure, it might only take a week or two for help to arrive, but a lot can happen in 14 days – and how will you cope if you have to hold out for longer than that?

Food Storage and Essential Skills

Learning a few survival skills provides peace of mind and greatly increases your chance of making it through Z-Day. It’s wise to learn how to preserve and store foods (trail mix and dried fruit pieces last almost forever), purify water, pitch a tent and start a fire with flint. Other useful skills include hand-to-hand combat, hot-wiring automobiles and siphoning gasoline. Hopefully, you’ll never need any of these skills, but if one day you do find yourself outnumbered by zombies, you’ll know what to do.

Tell us why you think people should prepare in the comments below!