While the viral “Storm Area 51” event that is seemingly set to take place may be a joke to some, the county that houses the secret U.S. military base is not laughing about it.
Lincoln County officials are preparing for around 35,000 to 40,000 people to show up to the remote part of Nevada, which is almost eight times the population of their 5,000 residents. County officials presigned a declaration of emergency on Monday.
“Oh, we’re taking this seriously,” Lincoln County Commission Chairman Varlin Higbee told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “With the possibility of 35,000-40,000 people showing up, yeah, this is serious.”
“We asked the commissioners to pre-sign the emergency declaration form, which in the event that we deplete our resources, both emergency response and financial, we could reach out to the state for assistance,” Eric Holt, emergency manager for the county, said. “We had them sign it, but we haven’t actually declared it as an emergency at this time. It’s more preparatory in the event for the time that we have to declare an emergency we don’t have to wait for the next commission meeting to happen.”
Because of the sudden influx of people in the area, Higbee said cell service will go down because “you get more than a couple of hundred people there, and it’s going to crash.”
Other events planned in connection with the Facebook event include an alien-themed music festival and a UFOlogy Expo.
The Air Force has warned it is a bad idea for anyone to actually to storm the base.
“The Nevada Test and Training Range is an area where the Air Force tests and trains combat aircraft,” Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews said. “Any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training areas is dangerous.”
