It probably is still something of a joke to most people in America and around the world but the thought of a zombie apocalypse may be gaining some momentum in mainstream society.
Just a few years ago, there were reports coming out of several states about people who seemed to have had literally lost their minds and committed atrocities that boggle the imagination. One man in Florida was arrested for chewing the face off of a homeless man after apparently having ingested bath salts. This was reminiscent of the classic zombie movies and television programs that depicted the walking dead feasting on the flesh of living human beings.
But while to most people a zombie apocalypse is still fodder for the entertainment industry, some people are taking it as seriously as they do the possibility of an economic crash or a natural disaster. The Kansas Division of Emergency Management has recently implemented a campaign requesting that residents throughout the state be adequately prepared for an inundation of zombies.
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback is expected to sign a proclamation this week that would turn October into Zombie Preparedness Month. The state’s emergency management officials have been ordered by the governor to be on high alert throughout the month for a possible zombie outbreak.
Are state officials really expecting an actual zombie attack? Well, perhaps not, but of course the point of the official gubernatorial designation is not really to ward off zombies. It is actually an effort to make Kansas’s emergency management infrastructure as prepared as possible for any kind of disaster, thinkable or unthinkable.
A spokesperson for the Division of Emergency Management informed reporters in an official statement that Zombie Preparedness Month is “ a fun and low-stress way to get families involved” in general disaster preparedness. As the spokesperson stated, an emergency management team that can handle a zombie apocalypse can certainly handle severe storms, fires, and any other natural disaster it might be faced with.
