Satire: Congress issues Code Black emergency after earthquake in California

This is a submission from Leon Cheng for the Shark Scholar Satire Competition 2018.

Recently, another severe earthquake has struck California’s Central Coastal Region. 200,000 people have become internally displaced and an estimated of $2.8 billion are lost through property damage.

Congress immediately called an eight-week meeting tackling this issue with the utmost urgency. An anonymous member of the Congress had leaked certain action plans that Congress decided to take.

According to the anonymous member, Congress had labeled this issue as Code Black. As he explained to our journalists, “Code Black is the highest emergency level of Congress. Any issues tagged with a Code Black could expect a solution or policy change in approximately five years.”

Congress had decided to deal with the earthquake crisis with extreme prudence. In the next six months, numerous experts from Federal Emergency Management Agency will go to the site of the earthquake. They will use their knowledge and an array of highest quality equipments to examine the rubbles and fault lines. Then these experts will publish a comprehensive set of reports confirming that, yes, an earthquake had indeed happened.

Of course, in America’s democratic system, a poll will also be conducted towards the victims of the Earthquake. There must be an absolute majority stating that the earthquake had really happened. Otherwise, if the majority didn’t want it, then the earthquake never occurred.

Ensuing the six months of investigation, Congress will voice out. The Congress will spend 12 months to draft a series of legislation that condemn the earthquake and prohibit the earthquake to never happen in California again.

Eventually, 18 months after the Earthquake, the Congress will urge for the creation of a panel of experts aimed at solving the earthquake crisis in California. The panel of experts will then repeat the aforementioned standardized procedures of crisis management.

It has never been more heartwarming to see the government working so tirelessly to help all those victims in need.