We’ve all seen it. In almost every disaster movie some bureaucrat or scientist comes up with an idea that is “just so crazy that it might actually work.” Well enter the world of real world disaster planning and preparedness education and you get the new novella Zombie Pandemic: Disaster Preparedness 101 from the Center for Disease Control.
This free online publication is follow-up to the widely successful Zombie Apocaloyse blog the CDC launched in May that caught Facebook and other social media by storm. The new online graphic novel illustrates the very real emergency response process and preparedness efforts used in responding to any real hypothetical pandemic like Bird Flu, SARS, or Swine Flu. Although just for the sake of attracting more buzz, this book uses a fictional zombie affliction to attract more readers. …And their brains.
Lead prevention specialists involved in this effort admitted to USA Today that this was a shot in the dark when they first launched it, but they were tired of previous efforts only gaining small levels of appeal. David Daigle of the CDC admits, “we waited two days to see if anyone got fired,” When they weren’t, they began tweeting and posting about it on Facebook.
Then in a tidal wave of excitement took over crashing the CDC’s blog server. “By Friday, we were trending worldwide on Twitter and the phone was ringing off the hook,” Margaret Silver says. The page got more than 3million views and 500 comments. “Most of our blogs get maybe five,” she says.
Well it certainly got our attention. So now be sure to tell your friends too so you will all be better prepared should another pandemic appear during this year’s flu season.