The zombie apocalypse would be a serious threat

Good luck to my opponent; this has been a great debate and I’ve had a lot of fun researching and writing it.FINAL ARGUMENTFirst, I’d like to point out (for my opponents benefit) that Romero zombies do not dig themselves out of their graves. The outbreaks really begin in hospitals, morgues and funeral homes; places where the dead are in high density. There is also the possibility of smaller outbreaks beginning in residential areas. I’ll address this point further in the context of my rebuttals.CONCERNING FIREMy opponent rightly added that zombies are afraid of fire at the beginning of his Round 2 argument. However, the extent of this fear has grown throughout his arguments to a point where I must disagree. The zombies are certainly repelled somewhat by fire, but simply possessing fire would not save you from a horde of zombies. I thought I would make that clear to the voters. I cite the scene in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead where the characters are clearing out the mall; while possessing a blow torch buys them time, it doesn’t stop the zombies from approaching to a point.I remind my opponent and the voters: eventually the fuel runs out.EXPANDED SELF-SPREADING EPIDEMIC (COUNTER-COUNTER-REBUTTAL TO PANIC & CHAOS AND NOT SO EASY TO KILL)My opponent has completely ignored my reference to Katrina as an example of how the US reacts to internal disasters; I assume this is because he couldn’t find a counter-example of the US reacting quickly and efficiently to such things. Since this is the last round, it would be unfair for him to introduce new evidence to counter this and I remind voters to take this into accountInstead, he claims “In the event of such an attack the U.S. would be completely thrown in a world war mode. “However, I find such a mode highly inefficient in the context of a zombie apocalypse as they are completely different contexts; this is why I chose Hurricane Katrina as an example of internal disaster. Remember that we are talking about 275 cities with populations ranging from 100,000 to 8,000,000 [1] in the United States. I expect the often incompetent US military would utterly fail in their response. My opponent’s sources seem to indicate that tanks, napalm and nuclear weapons are his solution. I see napalming your own cities to fight zombies as proof “you’re up against a serious threat”, which essentially proves the resolution. Now, concerning my opponent’s counter-argument; he argues that there are simply not enough corpses around for the zombies to be a threat…According to the CIA world fact book, specifically the part regarding the US death rate [2]… The population of the US is 313,232,044 The death rate is 8.38 per 1,000 people per annum. This means about 7,190 people die every day in the US. (I hope I got the math right on this… 313,232,044 / 1000 * 8.38 / 365)Now, this may seem like a fairly low number of corpses just ‘lying around’, so I’ll have to hypothesise about the inevitable exponential growth.I’m going to try to be very generous with my under-estimation these numbers to show a 'best case scenario' is still a serious threat.Let’s assume it takes 4 hours for a person to turn after being bitten, one quarter of the zombies are killed in the 4 hours and it takes 40 hours for the military to completely mobilise (I’ll explain why I think these numbers are very, very generous below).Hour 07190 zombies each bite 1 person.Hour 425% of zombies are killed14,382 zombies each bite 1 person.Hour 825% of zombies are killed21,574 zombies each bite 1 person.Hour 1225% of zombies are killed32,361 zombies each bite 1 person.Hour 1625% of zombies are killed…48,542 zombies each bite 1 person.Hour 2025% of zombies are killed72,813 zombies each bite 1 person.Hour 2425% of zombies are killed109,220 zombies each bite 1 person.Hour 2825% of zombies are killed163,830 zombies each bite 1 person.Hour 3225% of zombies are killed…245,745 zombies each bite 1 person.Hour 3625% of zombies are killed…368,618 zombies each bite 1 person…Hour 40552,828 zombies roaming the country.So we can see 7690% growth in 40 hours; cities like New York (densely populated) are likely to be overrun before the military can even mobilise.Now, let me explain why these numbers are drastically below what would realistically happen: Each zombie is highly likely to bite more than one person in a 4 hour period. Romero zombies will generally stop eating a corpse and chase new prey. Furthermore, the places densely populated with corpses that I mentioned above are likely to turn out small armies of zombies in a matter of hours. A four hour period is a fairly accurate average in my opinion; obviously a bite to the neck is going to turn you in a matter of minutes, but a bite to the arm or leg may take many hours (during which you become increasingly less able to fight zombies; this is an element I cannot factor in.) I highly doubt that 25% of all zombies will be killed; I would suggest 10% maximum but I used 25% to show a best case scenario. We can't assume that it would simply be common knowledge that zombies die from head trauma and are afraid of fire; quite the opposite. I also highly doubt that the military could mobilise within 40 hours to all of the 275 cities I cited above. NEVER SAFEMy opponent keeps talking about military compounds. If the population has largely been moved to such places, it only supports my resolution.I’d also like to add that during the PANIC & CHAOS period, people who are infected would be horded unchecked along with the uninfected into whatever safe-zones my opponents mythically efficient military setup. Once it became common knowledge that the bites were completely fatal, this would only encourage fear and distrust between strangers. CONCLUSIONThroughout this debate, I have done a lot of hypothesising about the US reaction to the zombie apocalypse. There is little doubt that third world countries with much higher death rates would fall drastically faster (I pointed this out early and my opponent never responded.) However, given Romero’s movies are based in the US; this seemed the appropriate place to set my arguments.In summary, the US government, particularly local forces are simply not trained to deal with zombies (obviously) and given most people’s primary concern is their own lives and the lives of their families, the chance they would all react in a calm, organised and cooperative manner is unthinkable. My panic and chaos argument has remained completely relevant throughout this debate.The US military are also untrained in dealing with an outbreak on such a massive and distributed scale. Considering there are 275 cities which you could describe as densely populated scattered through the United States, it is highly likely small towns and cities would be completely ignored and would either be abandoned or overrun. Furthermore, given the exponential growth of the zombies, the larger the city, the faster the zombie numbers will grow. Given larger cities will be the target of larger military operations - we have an automatic evening of numbers. Zombies are attracted to noise and would inevitably head for military strongholds. Most building these days are protected not by reinforced doors and glass, but by alarms and the presence of security guards. The military would be extremely hard pressed to find enough safe places to put hundreds of thousands of terrified people, let alone the men to organise and implement such a massive undertaking.It is my burden of proof to show that a Romero-style zombie apocalypse would affect the country in much the same way as portrayed in his films. This means large cities are abandoned to the zombies and survivors are hauled up in zombie proof structures, i.e. malls and underground bunkers.I have certainly fulfilled this burden; resolution affirmed.VOTE PRO.SOURCES[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] https://www.cia.gov...