This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
What would happen if the zombie outbreak's patient zero popped up in Salt Lake City?
If you're not content to sit back and imagine it during the "Walking Dead," now you can see for yourself. An online simulator, Zombie-town USA, lets you choose where the potentially apocalyptic virus begins and adjust for how it spreads across the country.
"We all know that a zombie infestation is inevitable, so why not try to understand the effects on the US with a simulation," wrote creator Matt Bierbaum. "We made such a simulation for the web in which all 308 million people from the 2010 census interact locally in the US. The dynamics are Gillespie dynamics in which every possible interaction is considered at each time step."
The map models the spread – based on 2010 block-level census data – and the outbreak begins wherever you place your patient zero (or patient zeroes – you can drop a new infection wherever you like). You can also adjust the spread for several factors, including inter-cell propagation speed and the "bite to kill" ratio.
In our simulation of Salt Lake City as patient zero's origin, the infection spread along The Wasatch Front and into Idaho – before coming to a dead end, so to speak.
Of course, to see what undead devastation looks like up close in Salt Lake, there's a video game for that too: "The Last of Us," which our reporter Matt Piper explored for us.
Twitter: @mikeypanda