Another Government Agency's Zombie Planning

Everyone looks up to Grandpa!

Ace reporter Frank Cerabino from The Palm Beach Post reports on the zombie preparedness plan of Okeechobee County in a recent article sent in by Grandpa.

Following in the vein of the CDC's recent report, Okeechobee County Emergency Management Director Mitch Smeykal unabashedly promotes the work of his predecessor in creating a Zombie Apocalypse Annex. The annex was developed to "spice up" annual planning exercises, which can become rote if the same disaster scenario is run year after year. The result could be zombie-like disaster responders who don't think about the dynamics of an actual response. So the annex isn't really part of their disaster response plan, but it helps to keep it and their people fresh. The web page with the annex has many other valuable resources for a zombie apocalypse, such as this sign:

I wish I had a nickel for every time...

Details of the plan are fairly familiar to anyone whose read The Zombie Survival Guide or The Zombie Combat Manual (see the definitive comparison of those two works here). Find weapons in your home appropriate for your skills (if the only tool you have is a hammer, even a zombie starts looking like a nail) and for knocking down a zombie or knocking its head off. The advice is localized for Florida residents, as reporter Cerabino explains:

Homeowners who don't evacuate are urged to fortify their dwelling in the same way they'd prepare for a hurricane.
"Hurricane shutters strong enough to resist a 2-by-4 at 50 mph will hold up to the breach efforts of Zombies," it read.
We hope.

See, it is just like preparing for any other disaster! The web page even says that the zombie apocalypse is like a "response to a pandemic virus and a civil defense related social uprising" all at once.

Also, I have to admit that in my past, I helped with an unusual disaster preparedness plan annex. I volunteered at an American Red Cross chapter and worked on their disaster response plan. One of the annexes to the plan is a hazard analysis, which listed possible disasters in the chapter's jurisdiction, their likelihood, and their impact. Our little committee had a sense of humor, so in addition to the normal possible disasters we included "Godzilla attacks," which had a very low likelihood but a very high impact on the community if it did happen. The plan made it through the review process with the chapter leadership and the state leadership without comment or deletion. Whenever the people from that committee run into each other, we always smile and say, "Godzilla lives!" It's our secret code word. Well, it's not so secret now. Whoops!