Photo by James Calder.

This afternoon, the D.C. Council convened a hearing about emergency preparedness. (Phil Mendelson, Chair of the Council’s Committee on the Judiciary, was annoyed! And frustrated!) That got us to wondering — what are the situations that would spark the kind of response that the city is trying to better prepare itself for? Fortunately, the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency has a handy list of the “major hazards” it considers the biggest threats to the District “based on historical data, frequency of occurrence, damage statistics and the city’s overall vulnerability”:

• Thunderstorms
• Winter Storms (that includes Snow)
• Transportation Accidents
• Special Events, Demonstrations and Civil Disruptions
• Urban Floods
• Utility Failures
• Hurricanes
• Radiological and Hazardous Materials
• Urban Fires
• Terrorism
• Extreme Weather
• Heat
• Cold
• Explosions (Manhole Covers)
• Critical Resource Shortages
• Human Viruses and Epidemics
• Earthquakes
• Tornadoes
• Prison Problems
• Urban Crime

“Human Viruses and Epidemics” — that should cover an invasion of the living dead, right? (And not to worry: according to today’s hearing, HSEMA is working to add “government shutdown” to the list.) Of course, there’s no guarantee that you’d actually hear about any of these events from the District government until your neighbor is snacking on your gray matter.