Emergency Info BC prepares Canadians for the zombie apocalypse (and more mundane disasters).
Would your family be prepared if disaster strikes? What would happen if you lost power for days at a time? What if there was an earthquake or an extreme weather event that threatened your property, or even your lives? Would you survive? Being ready at all times — with food, water, medical supplies, batteries, flashlights and all the other gear that might be needed to survive for a week or two — can make all the difference. But not everyone listens and this means that should the worst-case scenario happen, a lot of families will lack the pre-planning and supplies needed to make it until authorities are able to come to their rescue. And in the case of a more mild occurrence (like an extended power blackout), those who are ready for it will find themselves in a much more comfortable position as they wait for things to return to normalcy.
Governments struggle with the issue of emergency preparedness among the civilian population. They launch yearly information campaigns and publications follow suit with guides that are designed to help people safely make it through those difficult times where everything that can go wrong does — on a big scale. One of the biggest hurdles that has to be overcome is apathy. How do you get people to pay attention?
The Canadian province of British Columbia is taking a different approach to emergency preparedness this year. To get the message through to residents, the government mixed a big dose of zombie survivalism into its messaging. According to the website, the rationale is thus:
And while the chance of zombies a-knockin’ on your door is pretty slim, we do believe that if you’re ready for zombies, you’re ready for any disaster.
I can’t say that I would argue with that logic.
The Emergency Info BC website has been transformed into a zombie survival guide, which has accomplished the difficult feat of getting the message of preparedness into the news before there’s an actual disaster. Just getting the clicks on the website by making news outlets take notice is step one, but then comes the task of getting visitors to do more than just glance at it. To that end, the Emergency Info BC website is infused with humor (For example, “Day Two: What’s For Dinner? Hopefully Not My Brain”) and scattered with zombie references, a calculated risk but one that’s likely worth it if it keeps the material light enough for people to actually read through in detail. In the US, The Centers for Disease Control tried a similar tactic last year with a zombie pandemic survival graphic novella (you can download it here).
If you follow the guide and prepare yourself and your family to survive a zombie apocalypse, then by default you’re set for virtually anything. Although, I’ve been scanning the site for a while now and I haven’t found anything specifically on fighting zombies. For that, you’ll need to turn to public sources like our friend Roger Ma, the zombie combat specialist. Or, as Jonathan pointed out when writing about the CDC novella, make sure you add a shotgun to your list.
