BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The CDC wants you to be ready this October for zombies.

“Why zombies?” is a question that often comes up with Maggie Silver, who organized the Centers for Disease Control’s highly successful “zombie apocalypse” campaign last year, which was designed to prepare the unprepared for the ultimate disaster.

Silver told ABC News that the idea was born (or rose from the dead) after the CDC asked people on Twitter what kind of emergency they were prepared for after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. CDC officials spotted a number of “zombie” tweets in with the regular responses. Silver said. “We decided why not give people what they want? People were starting to realize they need to work outside the box a little bit.”

According to Examiner.com, Danta Randazzo of FEMA's individual and community preparedness division said, “Zombie-preparedness messages have been an effective way of engaging new audiences, particularly young people. It’s also a great way to grab attention and increase interest in general.”

The CDC site offers a brief history of zombies and discusses their various origins from papers, books, and movies. They also recommended an emergency kit consisting of items such as water, food, first aid, medications, tools, documents, clothing, and hygiene materials.

CDC Zombie Task Force t-shirts are also available on the site. The organization has even been to Comic-Con and Dragon-Con talking about emergency preparedness. The CDC reported their Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness 101 page crashed when it received more than 30,000 hits in the first few moments minutes of its debut in May 2011.