Where is the safest place to be in a zombie apocalypse?
Map your trek through cities near water, such as San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Baltimore, which dominated our Mobility category. Most of these cities have access to ports and marinas — it will be even easier to evade an army of hungry corpses if you can stay off land completely because zombies can't swim.
What is the likelihood of a zombie apocalypse actually happening and why?
What we think of as zombies are relatively new to American culture and really didn’t evolve into the “Hollywood” zombie until George Romero’s 1969 movie “The Night of the Living Dead” and the zombie craze was born. In the original script, Romero just referred to them as “flesh eaters” and were a metaphor of conformity, racism, militarism, and other social/societal ills. They were stories about people failing to respond in a proper way, by sticking it out as opposed to recognizing their own limitations.
With other movies, a music video (Thriller) and a series of events that lead people to believe that something like this could happen, it didn’t immediately grow into the level we see today for some time. The great recession (2008), government shutdowns, floods, fires, Ebola all played a role in the idea of an apocalypse. Much of an actual apocalypse is too scary for people to contemplate.
Hollywood steps in with the Walking Dead, and other movies and shows to allow a safe place to explore our apocalyptic worries, while in the back of our mind knowing it isn’t real. Real stories of disease, nuclear accidents/disasters are real, and maybe too much for most people to contemplate. People in general want to explore what it would be like, while they know it isn’t.
Zombies give people the opportunity to witness the end of humanity, satisfying their curiosity, putting themselves in characters, while allowing themselves to sleep at night because the catalyst of the end is fictional.
The modern Hollywood Zombies have their origins in the Haitian culture and religion that was transported via slave trades from central and western Africa. However, when exploring other cultures, we find a similar creature in almost every culture or population, throughout history.
Prior to the acceptance and understanding of germ theory, the limitations of science and the microscope, people needed a means to explain what they were seeing when it came to disease and death. From the Chinese hopping zombie, the English Revenant and the Norse Draugr (translating to “again walker or ghost”) to the German Nachtzehrer and the Hindu Vetala, were all part of the oral and eventual written tradition of people trying to explain, what they were witnessing in their own population.
With the development of scientific methods and advancements, these creatures remain part of history, with no scientific facts behind them. While there have been more than 40 new diseases that emerged and reemerged in the human population in the past 50 years, none have caused a zombie to appear and likely won’t. There are certainly mind-altering diseases, some that are infectious, like rabies, but can be easily controlled and managed.
The likelihood of zombie-like infection is small, especially when you think about it from a sense of what kind of etiological agent would this be? Virus, bacteria, parasite? It would have to come from something that already exists in the world, since we don’t have the ability to create a living organism from nothing. It would have to acquire a mutation, or successive mutations (variants), which means it would have to infect a lot of people to do so and go noticed by science. It would have to be incredibly infectious person to person and would likely not have an animal reservoir to really become a pandemic. So in short…..NO it isn’t likely to happen.
Movies have taught us that, in order to survive a zombie apocalypse, the living must keep moving. When traveling, how should you prioritize what to pack, who to bring, when to go, etc.?
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If there were a fast moving apocalypse, and you have to move from a disaster, you need to think about where you are going and how you are going to get there. If you can drive you can carry a lot more of what you deem as necessities, as opposed to walking (or running), then your perception of necessity will change.
If you take daily medicines that would likely be something small that you should take as opposed to trying to carry your 60” flatscreen with surround sound. A laptop or tablet would be great, because they are small, but you will also need a place to charge, and need to be kept dry. They also need the internet to be useful. Is that going to exist? If not, then they become paperweights.
The question of who to bring seems obvious, especially from a public health standpoint. Everyone! We want to save everyone, and we try to save everyone, we want everyone to have the opportunity to survive as long as they can. Unfortunately, in disasters, people get left behind, or get separated and lost, or intentionally don’t want to leave and are lost to the disaster. We see this with hurricanes and with the recent anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, of individuals who didn’t want to leave their home and succumbed to the violent eruption.
Where are the best places to seek shelter when on the move?
Depending on the situation, there are places that people can seek shelter. I often think of when I was a child in elementary school and the tornado shelters in our school were the bathrooms. Of course, boys went to the boy’s bathroom and girls went to the girl’s, and I often thought what would happen in a real tornado and I couldn’t make it to the boy’s bathroom. Would I die because I wasn’t allowed in the girl’s bathroom?
In today’s world there are shelters that can be stood up quickly to accommodate the movement of people. The more time to prepare and plan, the better the shelter. You would need/want a place with food, clean water, working toilets and showers and a low population. You would want medical care if needed.
There is the joke that the best shelter is a Sam’s Club or Costco. They are generally built out of concrete. They have a lot of food, places to sleep, water and you need a membership to get in, which the presumption is that zombies wouldn’t have a membership and be turned away. But thinking about that, would everyone else go there? Then resources become more challenging when everyone is clamoring for them.
Also, when dealing with an infectious disease-causing agent, the fewer people around you, the less likely disease transmission can occur.
What are the three best weapons against zombies and why those?
Knowledge, Science, and Reasoning are the best weapons for a zombie apocalypse or any disaster. I know you wanted to know which physical weapon to bring (machete, gun, etc). However, those are short term, last option resources. Arming yourself with knowledge, science, and reasoning is limitless, doesn’t take any space or weight and can be used in all situations.
Knowledge of what is happening and how to best protect yourself, and is the core goal of science.
What is the easiest novel to read?
Its short length also makes this book easy to read, even for beginners! Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway....
Science is the process of understanding what is occurring, proven facts, and deterministic relationships. We gain knowledge through science.
Finally, reasoning, the ability to make decisions based on evidence and ability to read situations that help us to determine what is safe and what isn’t, allowing humanity to survive.
What are your three most important tips for surviving a zombie apocalypse?
While practically no such etiological agent exists that would render a human into a zombie-like state, we could therefore look at any disaster in a similar light. Global warming allows for a disaster scenario that will affect everyone on the planet, which might mimic a zombie movie. You have to flee your home; you will be on the move with people you don’t know. You won’t have cell phone coverage or even power to charge a device. What would you do?
First, you need a detailed plan of what to do and where to go, with a backup option or two. What if there was a flash flood that forced you from your home? Where would you go, how would you get there? How would you communicate with your family or friends? Where would you stay? Thinking about it from a practical standpoint, if you can answer these questions, then likely you are already somewhat prepared.
Second, you have to think about how you would receive information about what is occurring, what is safe, and where to go to travel? Taking that laptop, tablet, or smartphone are great if they can be charged and there is a wifi signal that you can access. However, an FM radio has much more versatility. They are equipped to transmit a signal that has been around for centuries, the radio can have batteries, but they have hand crank radios that you can charge by turning the handle. They are portable and have a wide range of station options as you relocate.
Third, make a supply kit for quick use. Three days of food and water is generally what is recommended, however in a true disaster you can’t expect the federal, state, or local government to come in and help. The scale would be too great.
In that kit you also need any medications, and supplies, like a can opener and cooking pots, utensils, matches, flashlights as well as something to occupy your mind, like a deck of cards. Camping supplies are great, they are lightweight, small, store easily, and can be used in a variety of environments. Although, waiting until a disaster occurs to “stock” up is too late, because everyone else will also be trying to do the same.
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Photo: Rachel Claire
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