By M.L. Lewis

Zombies are everywhere: they are in your towns, your suburbs, and your homes. You may have spent years training for the moment the dead stop dying, but are you truly ready? Zombie movies gave us a false idea that zombies are the only threat that you and your family will have to face in the zombie apocalypse, but after years of researching the subject, they are actually the least of your worries.

8. Weather-Related

Mother Nature doesn’t take a break because of zombies. Weather threats like tornadoes or hurricanes don’t just go away. Unfortunately, because of the situation, meteorologists and other people in the weather-related professions will be gone to the wayside as their equipment goes down.

You’ll need to learn the warning signs of approaching storms before they catch you off guard. Familiarize yourself with weather issues related to your area and how to safeguard yourself and your home from them.

7. Drought

Droughts are essentially water shortages. Even if you don’t live in a hot, dry area you can still be affected by a lack of water. With no trash pick up and sewage lines backing up from lack of maintenance, a lot of water supply lines will become contaminated. The water through your pipes will be no more since they depend on electricity to operate.

In event you find a freshwater source, raiders might dam it up to horde it for there own use. Sure, you can collect rainwater, but what if you live in an area that doesn’t see much of that? Also, with all the chemical and nuclear plants exploding and releasing waste into the atmosphere you won’t be too sure if the rainwater you collected is potable.

6. Famine

Famine, or food shortages, are one of the biggest killers in the world. Every year one million people die of famine. Those numbers come from today’s statistics, now throw zombies into the mix. Stores won’t open because there will be no employees to stock and operate the registers.

If you do find a store that is open, chances are they don’t have any products because the transit lines were shut down to prevent further spread of the zombie virus. Farmers suffer because they won’t have any help with harvesting, so crops will be left in the field to rot. We as a society have become completely dependent on these supply lines, that when they fall we won’t know what to do with ourselves.

5. Civil Unrest/Riot

From all that lack of food, water, and other basic necessities people will quickly turn savage on one another. It’s our human instinct to do what we can to survive. The government will try to reassure the public that they have everything under control and everything will be okay. Chances are this will be far from the truth.

Just look at the aftermath of every disaster in history. What is the first thing people do in a crisis? They loot. Looting will become more and more common as resources get fewer and fewer. People will stop at nothing to save themselves and their families even if it means to kill you and steal your stuff. Not to mention, you’ll have crazed armed groups going around for the sole point of killing zombies and anybody who gets in there way for the sheer fun of it in this lawless society.

4. Martial Law

To combat the looting, rioting, and gangs the government will try a last ditch effort to bring ordered back to society by declaring Martial Law. This means the government is taking away all your civil rights and making the country a police state. This is usually the government’s last resort when other methods to curb the people fail.

It’s also used to contain the spread of the zombie virus by declaring a mandatory curfew and shoot on sight orders. The last time the United States was under Martial Law was the first five years after the Civil War because the government was trying to fix the country, making it whole again. This effort though will come a little too late to do much good at fixing the crumbling country.

3. Nuclear Disaster

After Martial Law fails the government will pull out all the stops to contain the zombie virus. They will drop nuclear bombs on the red zones in order to kill as many zombies as possible. Yes, we will nuke ourselves in order to save the few survivors left in this country. This is another reason to get out of the cities as soon as possible. Major cities, like L.A. and Chicago, have very dense populations, which means dense herds of zombies roaming around.

This is seen quite a bit in recent films and shows, and many believe this is mainly a tool to build suspense and drama. Unfortunately, it is not! It is actually in our country’s disaster readiness plan as part of a DEFCON 1 scenario.

Don’t panic quite yet over this, because we have never EVER had to do this in the history of the world. We have been through thousands of pandemics and we can get through thousands more without wiping out a chunk of the country with nuclear bombs.

2. Pandemic

Speaking about pandemics, this is another important issue to focus on. The zombie virus maybe seems like the number one viral threat in the country, but it’s not the only one. In the aftermath of many disasters, there has been a spike of illnesses affecting the areas involved with it. There won’t be just one virus there will be many you should be aware of. Malaria is common after floods. Influenza is common after blizzards and blackouts.

You also have to take into consideration a lot of parents are going against vaccines and over the last five years, we have seen diseases we haven’t seen in years make a comeback, like measles and scarlet fever. It won’t be uncommon as well that during a zombie apocalypse we see a return of TB, cholera, and possibly the great revival of smallpox.

1. Blackouts

Blackouts are the number one disaster in the country. At least everyone on the planet will experience at least one in their lifetime. Usually, they are a minor nuisance and are dealt with in a few hours. But, what if the power never came back? We as a society are heavily dependent on our electronics. Seriously, when was the last time you want 24 hours without your phone. Now, imagine losing your phone for good.

You can’t, because we as a society have become so dependent on this little piece of technology we can’t go five minutes without it. Blackouts can be man-made or knocked out by nature, and with zombies roaming around the personnel trained to bring it back up will be gone for good. No power means no computers, and no computers will put the world at a standstill.