FEMA Citizen's Guide to Hurricane Preparedness

With all of these racecars, lasers and aeroplanes zipping about it can often feel like life in Duckburg has become as chaotic as a hurricane. Don't be fooled: hurricanes are nothing to be compared with daily life. Many hurricanes are capable of generating gusts of wind powerful enough to blow down mountains or turn sand into an unbroken sheet of glass. If that were not bad enough, here in Duckburg the two biggest dangers from a hurricane are storm surges and the potential of a levee breach. Duckburg was constructed below sea-level and those levees are the only thing holding back the fury of Poseidon. Will they hold up? Sure, why not? But in case they don't, you need to be prepared for surviving a flood of toxic goop on a scale that is usually accompanied by a prophet constructing a boat full of bugs and dinosaurs.

First you need to assess the situation. Are you a duck or are you a Beagle Boy? If you're a Beagle Boy you might as well just skip to the end of this because you're not really going to be able to follow most of our suggestions due to a lack of resources. Just plan on riding out the hurricane and then reverting to the barely-suppressed bestial urges that served your ancestors so well before they were brought to this country and domesticated. If you're a duck, great news: your chances of survival just increased exponentially. But you're not out of the woods yet, quackers. Next to the poor the unprepared are the second most likely group to suffer a fatality.

In the event of an impending hurricane you should do everything in your power to evacuate the area. If you are unable to evacuate, possibly because of a pressing matter concerning a magical gem and a time machine, then you should take the precautions outlined in this guide.

The first thing you will want to do is familiarize yourself with Duckburg's evacuation plans, shelters and post-disaster aid stations. The main disaster shelter is the Duckburg Coliseum, but that place will be lousy with Beagle Boys so you're better off taking your chances elsewhere. Please refer to the disaster planning map to locate an appropriate shelter. Most shelters will be evacuated in a timely manner, usually four to five days following a major hurricane. You will be taken to a nearby Rescue Ranger aid station and given a medical checkup as well as food and water.

If for some reason you are unable to escape to a pre-planned evacuation shelter you may face any number of concerns. One of these is the sudden and unrestrained activity of Duckburg's criminal element. In the aftermath of a major hurricane, experts predict rampant looting and mob violence as even the reformed Beagle Boys throughout the city return to their roots. Perishables, pre-packaged food, baby formula, water, juice and televisions will be looted from stores. Nothing is safe from their depravity, not even a seemingly well-fortified vault or bin containing thousands of gold coins. In the overcrowded conditions of the Duckburg Coliseum the Beagle Boys may grow restless while waiting for evacuation and branch out into the surrounding area to loot and wreak vengeance on the surviving ducks.

Stay away from the Beagle Boys and stay alive. With the streets inundated you will want to limit your contact with the unsanitary water found there as much as possible. If at all possible have your scatterbrained inventor associate construct some sort of battery-operated amphibious perambulator. In the event that you are forced to travel through the water be absolutely certain you have emptied your pockets of the hundreds of heavy coins you usually carry around. In deeper waters these may drag you below the surface and at best you may swallow some of the contaminated water before you can unburden yourself.

If for some reason your no account brother has left you with his four jabbering whelps to tend to seemingly indefinitely then you may wish to loose them upon the streets at the earliest opportunity. They are more likely to be kidnapped rather than raped or slain outright by the Beagle Boys and they will only be an unwanted drain during a time when it is difficult to care for your own safety. These be-capped nephew types are known to be quite resourceful and may even find their way back to your coiny fastness with food or at least a sub-literate prehistoric relic with the strength to hold back the untidy hoard of Beagle Boys clamoring for rescue.

The wisest of ducks has made arrangements with a dunderheaded pilot who can use some manner of autogyro to pluck you and perhaps some of your kin from the rooftop of your vault. Though you are no doubt loathe to abandon your fortune to the predations of the lesser races you can take heart that if they violate your sanctum they will likely pay for it with their lives. If your sputtering buffoon of a cohort fails in even the simple task of acquiring an escape vehicle you may be able to deploy your cybernetic duck to lift you to safety. This is no fool's task as the blasted machine, though equipped with a rotor, lacks a means of countering torque. While this duck-machine spins madly perhaps your addled chauffeur can take the time from his schedule of eating tacks to lower himself on a rope and pull you into the glorious sky.

FEMA knows that preparing for a disaster can be a seemingly overwhelming task, so to assist you we have prepared a checklist that you may use to organize your efforts. This list could not possibly cover every circumstance you may encounter, but it should give you a good starting point.

In the period immediately following a disaster FEMA will take a number of steps to ensure the safety of Duckburg and its citizenry. We cannot reveal all of these steps as many fall under the purview of the shadowy super-government that controls our agency, but we can offer the following:

1. Immediately after the disaster strikes FEMA will hold a press conference announcing that we will be responding to the disaster area.

2. One day later FEMA will hold a second press conference to update the media and concerned citizens on how we are progressing with our preparations for a response.

3. Two days after the disaster the first FEMA teams will arrive on the scene and begin milling about or kicking rocks back and forth.

4. Three days after the disaster we will receive a call from the Coast Guard asking why our helicopters and relief teams are sitting at the airport while the Coast Guard is out there busting their asses. We will hang up without answering and hold a third press conference to thank the Coast Guard and congratulate everyone for the gifts they gave us at our last Christmas party.

5. On day four FEMA will arrive in force and begin staring intensely at pallets of bottled water and food. Ooh, the president's coming. Get some firemen in here to stand around and look hard-working behind him. Do we have a pile of rubble he can stand on and yell? No? Well, he can talk about the tragic destruction of Trent Lott's magnificent plantation that he bought sight-unseen on the Internet.

6. When National Guard troops begin to arrive in significant numbers on day five FEMA will panic that another competing agency has approached Duckburg and we will begin randomly driving around cutting communications lines, pouring sugar into gas tanks, screaming tonelessly into every radio frequency and generally trying to confound the efforts to rescue those trapped in flooded areas.

7. By day six we will begin receiving masses of volunteers. They will be ordered to dig a mass grave and then bury all of the stockpiles of bottled water and MREs. We will advise the National Guard and local police to lock down the city to prevent people walking out from stealing our precious hoard of bottled water.

8. Usually around day seven the media gets a bug up their ass about something and we have to start acting like we know what we're doing. Don't worry, it's just an act. We will hold a marathon press conference where we thank every person in the Washington phonebook. Usually the media leaves before we get to the letter "C."

9. Day eight is the day we judge the Arabian horse show. No exceptions. No compromise.

10. Day nine and we sometimes start getting some emails about congressional hearings. Weren't they hearing all those fabulous press conferences we gave? Their loss!

11. Day ten and what do you know, most of the people have been evacuated by Wal*Mart and the Coast Guard. Guess that means it's time to put in an appearance with some harebrained money handout scheme we cooked up that fails to materialize as promised. 1,000 dollar debit cards? 2,000? Why stop there?! They're never getting them so we may as well hand out one billion dollar debit cards. Then we'll see if we can get Paula Zahn to yell at us again because she's a total MILF. Did you know she plays the cello? Beautiful AND talented!

12. Well, everything is right as rain! Duckburg has sunk into the sea, 50,000 Beagle Boys are dead, the nation is heading for an economic meltdown and Sean Penn is getting better press than us. It's all in a month's work for FEMA.

It may all seem like a duck-blur but stay focused amid the chaos and you should come through alright. Hey, if you do, we've got a bil…no…trillion dollar Amazon gift card waiting for you! You can use it to buy grain alcohol and crack cocaine and whatever else you silly Beagle Boys are into these days.Thanks to Shmorky for the awesome Duck Tales parody art!

– Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons (@sexyfacts4u)