After a tiring day of lectures, riding the 111 Baseline can be a nightmare.
The bus’ overwhelming press of bodies and scent of faded deodorant is an easy place to zone out in. That is, until an angelic-looking blonde sinks her teeth into her neighbour’s shoulder.
Welcome to Ottawa’s zombie apocalypse.
If Ottawa was overrun by hordes of shambling, flesh-eating zombies, what could be done to survive? Would there be any hope for Canada’s capital?
The outbreak
Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his name), a mathematics professor and zombie expert at the University of Ottawa says yes, but only if action was taken immediately.
“You have to hit the early outbreak of zombies very quickly, and if you miss the window at the beginning, you really don’t have much of a chance,” he says.
“Ottawa would be overrun.”
The majority of the city would be transformed into a horror scene straight from The Walking Dead within eight days, says Jason Tetro, a microbiologist with the Emerging Pathogens Research Centre in Ottawa.
According to his research, only 35 per cent of the population would survive. But this is a good survival rate. By contrast, if a strain of the Ebola virus wasn’t recognized until it was too late, only eight per cent would survive.
Tetro explains that a zombie outbreak could be modelled after the Ebola virus due to the zombie virus’ rapid-acting way of infecting someone, usually within 72 hours. A hybridization of Ebola and rabies, which causes strong dementia and rage, could be the key to creating a zombie virus.
The initial case would have to spread rapidly through blood or the air, Tetro says. Once it starts to spread, entire communities could be infected within a day through Ottawa’s reliance on public transportation and social activity.
“People who are in suburbs tend to interact with each other much more than people who live in urban environments, which is why Kanata or Barrhaven would end up having a greater outbreak than the Glebe,” Tetro explains.
“This is one of the most ironic things about an epidemic: the source area itself is probably not going to be very affected because most of the people are travelling out. Then you’re going to have an outer zone where it’s going to be extremely affected, similar to a hurricane,” Tetro says.
According to Tetro, the beginnings of a zombie outbreak in an urban area like downtown Ottawa would be very easily noticed and contained because people “don’t interact en masse like people in the suburbs.”
Despite the warnings of contemporary zombie movies or TV shows, Smith? notes that one of the safest places to be in Ottawa would be downtown.
“Zombies can climb stairs and things like that, but not very well. If you go up in buildings, you have the chance of defending them,” he says.
“If you can hide out, maybe there’s a zombie in the stairwell, but once you clear out the few zombies that are lingering around, then you can secure the building and you’ve got something that’s safe.”
Where to survive
Tetro suggests Parliament Hill as an excellent hideout downtown.
“If you can find yourself in a place where you’re highly segregated and you have the opportunity of having high security, there’s a very good chance you’re going to stay safe,” he says.
Both experts agree that because Ottawa is the capital and there’s a military presence, Ottawans have a better chance of surviving than in a smaller, less defended city.
“Can I fight off a zombie? Yeah, I can. And if it’s me versus 100, I have no chance. Where if you bring in military, tanks and flamethrowers, that usually does it,” Smith? says.
Smith? also points out that the city’s peculiarities like the Ottawa River, Rideau Canal, the bridge to Quebec, and cold temperatures contribute to a higher rate of survival.
The Alexandra Bridge could be destroyed to protect the city, and while zombies can theoretically walk underwater, it would be harder for them to cross over. The frigid temperatures in winter would also freeze them for a few months, Smith? says.
The Central Experimental Farm could also be an intriguing hideaway, Tetro says. The Herbarium has a seed collection of all the plant species in Canada to preserve them in case of a disaster or nuclear attack.
Smith? says he thinks that it could work, but only if there were people who knew how to farm, build walls and create shelter.
“Farming seems like a great idea but it’s a long-term investment. You need to create a mini version of civilization inside the Experimental Farm where different people are playing different roles,” he says.
Surviving in the wild
Getting out of the city could also be an option, Tetro says.
Wilderness areas like Gatineau Park provide isolation and there’s “a very good chance” of survival because of the distance from the virus source.
Gino Ferri, director of the wilderness survival company Survival in the Bush Inc., says if you were stuck in the wilderness, the key to survival is your brain.
“If you have your brain functioning, you can devise anything that you want. Survival is a mental state more than anything else,” he says.
He recommends shelter, fire and water as necessities in the wild, in addition to a high carbon steel knife. Finding food is the last thing to get, because clean, boiled water can keep a person alive for a week.
Smith? says he believes the wilderness would be a good place to hide out, but an average city-dweller’s lack of outdoor knowledge would be a problem.
“Maybe I can hunt and kill things, but have I ever done that before? No. But if you already lived [in rural areas] you may have more skills for survival than someone who lives in a city,” Smith? says.
“My instinct says an urban environment would be better.”
Smith?’s answer to how to survive a zombie apocalypse is simple: civilization.
He says that the biggest mistake people could make is to base survival on individualism and self-preservation.
“If we’re saying that now I really only care about me and maybe a few friends or family, I’m talking about individual survival. And at that point, it’s probably too late,” he says.
“The actual answer to the zombie invasion is the very thing we have now—civilization. Civilization is a great defence against a zombie invasion. Zombies don’t have brains, they cannot think. We can do things they can’t. That’s the one advantage we have over them. We can work together.”
