Kansas is once again teaching disaster planning with a Zombie Preparedness Month

Zombies aren’t real. They have never been real. They are never going to be real. Certainly no one in the Kansas state government thinks that zombies are real.

But the state is once again going to make believe that zombies are real as part of Zombie Preparedness Month. The month is an attempt by Kansas’s Gov. Sam Brownback and the Kansas Division of Emergency Management to prepare for potential cataclysmic events.

The rationale for the event is that it’s difficult to get people to prepare for an actual disaster that may or may not happen. So instead, Kansas tries to inspire its citizens to prepare for a fictional disaster that will absolutely never happen, and hope that the lessons they learn will carry through in the event that a real one strikes. (Common lessons might include owning a first-aid kit, and having an escape plan.)

There’s nothing on KSReady.gov yet about how specifically the state will celebrate, but previous years’ events included zombie walks, public “Thriller” performances, and Spooktacular Safety Fairs.

Kansas isn’t the only one to blame. Emergency agencies have been cashing in on the popularity of zombies for years now. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even made an online comic about what to do in case of a zombie pandemic.

Spoiler alert: You don’t need to worry, because zombies are fictional characters from horror movies. Still, your family should definitely own a first aid kit, in case a real, non-zombie emergency strikes.