My sister, the geophysicist, was telling me today about the Southern California ShakeOut, an event this November 12th at 10AM when everyone is being asked to stop & consider what would happen if there was a 7.4 earthquake on the San Andreas. She went to a seminar where different representatives of the event spoke about the various pieces of the puzzle.

Such a quake would break the freeways heading east. The only “escape” would be north. The first city north is Bakersfield, whose mayor has stated that they would be unable to deal with the influx of refugees that such a quake would cause and would shut down the freeway. Which just underlines the importance of working together: we’re in this together, as a state and as people.

Such a quake would cause fires, fires that LA firefighters would start work on, and which San Diego firefighters would very quickly pitch in with. Until the aftershock hit SD, forcing them home. The best thing to do in that kind of situation would be to head to the beach and watch the city burn.

If evacuated, people would surrender their household belongings to the looters, who would come. If people have a disaster plan, and if they stick to that plan, most people will congregate with their friends and family members, with food, water, data (hopefully!), and pets. (See comments for my disaster plan.) My sister made the very valid point that we (humans) can live without food for weeks (although I will have my cats) as long as we have water. My sisters’ plans are to congregate, one with food, one with guns & ammo.

It’s interesting to me to listen to peoples’ disaster preparedness plans, and in Southern California, disasters (fires, quakes) are never far from peoples’ minds. But I have found that most people my age don’t discuss disaster preparedness in terms of fires, quakes, or tornadoes; we discuss it in terms of zombies. “When the zombies attack…” is the frequent start of conversations among friends & coworkers.

“When the zombies attack, if you can’t grow your own food, you won’t survive.” A coworker (who always bikes to work) has told me, just before pointing me in the direction of his favorite gardener-cum-activist.

“When the zombies attack, this will be one of the worst places to be.” Is a frequent phrase heard early in the morning at the Apple store, just before the giant glass doors (they weight a ton each) slide open to admit the first shoppers with their dead dead eyes.

“Dude, when the zombies attack, I’m hanging out with him.” This violates my rule, since it was spoken by a 40-ish coworker about a 60-ish coworker who holds the record for his age group in running the marathon. However, the logic here is misplaced since, when the zombies attack, he’s gonna be running. And we won’t be able to keep up…

“Of course I’ve got an earthquake kit at home. When the zombies attack, you need to be prepared!” This one was interesting to me since it combined the two: being prepared for an earthquake as the same as being prepared for a zombie apocalypse.

“My wife calls it the panic room,” a friend says of a closet in his home where he keeps his guns, “and when the zombies attack, we’ll be set!” His wife is now thinking of putting provisions in there.

In the same conversation, his brother said, “No, when the zombies attack, I’m going to WalMart!” And then proceeded to outline his clearly thought-out reasons: food, lockdown, and guns. Although WalMart no longer carries guns, which we reminded him of. “Okay, then when the zombies attack, I’ll swing by your place first. We can get some guns and then hole up in WalMart.”

There’s no if in these conversations. There never is. The zombie apocalypse is clearly very entrenched into our psyches. And I wonder if it really is the most concrete way we can think about the unknown disasters that can strike. I’m currently reading the Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, which discusses the difficulty humans have preparing for, mentally and physically for the improbable and for the not-clearly-defined. Southern Californians can say glibly that we have many earthquakes a day and that there is a high likelihood that a large one will hit us soon. But very few of us have a disaster plan. Is the zombie apocalypse so outlandish that it becomes real to us? Something that we can prepare for in a way that we cannot prepare for earthquakes, fires, and tornadoes? Or is it a broader social commentary about social sheep/zombies? Or, or! Is it because there are hundreds of cultural zombie artifacts (movies, TV shows, books) to help mentally prepare ourselves but for natural disasters, we must turn to the hated genres of history and documentary (Twister, I think, actually proves this point).