A few months ago, I wrote about how the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention uses the Zombie Apocalypse concept to teach
people to take emergency preparedness seriously.
Well, they’ve gotten even more serious — they’ve issued two
online illustrated novellas — remember when we called these “comic
books?”
The novellas are available at www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies_novella.
The premise is that preparing for a zombie apocalypse would be like
preparing for any other disasters — you need water, food, shelter,
clothing and a way to carry all that stuff with you if you have to
evacuate, including having at least a half tank of gas in your
vehicle at all times.
It is kind of hard to evacuate when your car is out of gas and
zombies are bearing down on you. You might be able to outrun the
ones behind you but you’ll just run into more in front of you.
Now that Halloween is done, zombie season seems to be over but
winter is on its way and preparing for that is where we should
concentrate now. Every year, the National Weather Service and the
Colorado governor declares the last week in October as Winter
Weather Preparedness Week in Colorado. This year the proclamation
could have come a few weeks earlier to coincide with the first
snowfall. By now, we’ve missed the week but we haven’t missed the
need to prepare for the rest of winter.
Winter is a dangerous time — in its brochure “Winter Storms: The
Deceptive Killers,” available at www.nws.noaa.gov, the weather
service lists the statistics behind the title. Every year dozens of
people die from exposure to cold temperatures. Many more die or are
injured in traffic accidents, heating-related house fires and
carbon monoxide poisoning and other weather-related causes.
Survival becomes a state of mind when you realize that most
winter fatalities, due either to traffic accidents or being caught
outdoors, happen to males over 40 years of age. These are the
people least likely to admit that they aren’t 17 anymore.
So what does it take to be prepared for winter besides a
survivor’s don’t-take-chances attitude?
Winter storms are usually tracked, so we know they’re coming,
although we don’t always know how severe they’re going to be. I
still have bad memories of spending hours of quality time in a
North Platte, Neb., travelers aid shelter while the highway
department rescued hundreds of stranded motorists before they could
reopen Interstate 80.
The brochure has a list of items that should be kept in homes
and at work in cases of emergencies, especially those that involve
a loss of power. Because we have our entire home or office to draw
from, the list isn’t all that specific but it does include
flashlights and battery-powered radios, along with extra batteries,
food, water, clothing, blankets, medicine and first aid
supplies.
The list of items we should have in our cars is more specific,
listing such things as a “small can and waterproof matches to melt
snow for drinking water,” for example.
Now that we have the supplies we need, another page in the
brochure covers what we should do if we are caught in a winter
storm, including staying dry, finding shelter if we aren’t already
in one and staying in our cars or homes if that’s where we are when
the storm hits.
In giant type, the brochure says “AVOID OVEREXERTION, such as
shoveling heavy snow, pushing a car or walking in deep snow. The
strain from the cold and the hard labor may cause a heart attack.
Sweating could lead to a chill and hypothermia. …” Good advice,
especially for those 40-something males who are more likely to die
in a winter storm.
Finally, there is the family disaster plan. Individual survival
isn’t enough. It would be nice if our families survived the
disaster with us no matter whether it’s a winter storm or the
zombie apocalypse, don’t you think?