Photo: Rentola.ca

Kelowna ranked 7th in a report looking at which Canadian metropolitan areas would be the best places to survive a fictitious 'zombie apocalypse'.

How would the people of Kelowna survive in the event of a zombie apocalypse?

Pretty well, according to a tongue-in-cheek report for rental housing platform rentola.ca

Kelowna came in 7th of 35 metropolitan areas in Canada based on five criteria: Hideouts, Supplies, Safety, Mobility and Vulnerability.

Edmonton finished number one in the report, followed by Saskatoon, Guelph, Calgary and Regina. Kelowna was the highest ranked BC city. The only other city from this province in the top 10 was Abbotsford.

Victoria was the tenth worst place to survive a zombie apocalypse. St. John, New Brunswick was the worst, followed by Belleville, Ontario and Trois Rivières, Quebec.

Being on the shores of Okanagan Lake was seen as a positive, along with the number of residents who cycle, run and garden. Kelowna ranked high, with an 8.68 out of 10, for Mobility.

“It may be that you will have to travel a lot in search of survivors, provisions, or a better fate. Therefore, it is important that transport is your friend, and mobility is your best ally,” wrote the report’s authors.

Kelowna didn’t score as well on some criteria, including Hideouts, where we only got a 4.51, and safety, with a rating of 5.53.

“Apocalypse isn't just about astronauts flying on a heroic mission to destroy an asteroid heading toward Earth, it's often a game of hide and seek. Therefore, it is important to find the best, most protected, or remote place to save your life and grow potatoes. This index shows how many hiding places there are in the region,” says the rentola.ca report.

The safety criteria analyzed the crime rate per 100,000 population, the number of available weapons in a city and the proximity to a military base.

As for supplies, Kelowna got points for having lots of gardens to grow vegetables and the lake and creeks being an easy source of fish for food.

The researchers used Statistics Canada data and indexed the information to convert it to a value between 1-10. This means the higher a score an area achieved, the better is was relative to the others.

Photo: Rentola.ca