CEDA

"Good Question. Where is C.E.D.A.? All I see are the zombies..."

- Rochelle

CEDA (Civil Emergency and Defense Agency) is a fictional governmental organization in the Left 4 Dead universe. Materials with the CEDA logo advising Survivors can be found in numerous safe rooms.

Overview
According to descriptive text on Valve's store page for the CEDA Coffee Mug, CEDA has "protected millions of Americans from the terrifying consequences of natural and man made disasters since 1988."

Involvement with containing The Infection
"Safety Checklists" with a "CEDA" logo have been spotted around the now-deserted Fairfield, instructing residents to barricade themselves in their basements and wait for help to arrive.

They also instruct citizens to seal their windows and all other openings with plastic sheeting and duct tape, implying an airborne infection. However, one sign in the safe room at the end of The Subway has been written on by another Survivor, saying "NOT AIRBORNE".

Apparently, the population is extremely dissatisfied with CEDA's safety measures and course of action, as implied by graffiti in the safe rooms of Crash Course and The Parish campaigns, which read as "CEDA BLOWS", as well as various other graffiti found all over the campaigns of Left 4 Dead 2, among the lines of "CEDA sucks".

Evacuation Centers
When the Infection first began, CEDA first tried to contain the virus by quarantining the infected individuals from the public by keeping them in isolated buildings. However, this method was unsuccessful. CEDA then had to take the next step of full town and city evacuations. CEDA then began setting up evacuation centers around major urban centers such as hospitals, arenas or malls where people were “forced” to go and await further instruction. A CEDA representative would assess the evacuation centers and provide hourly updates over all radio frequencies of the current conditions; however it is presumed that the infected individuals also made their way to those locations and quickly almost every evacuation center was overrun by the infected. With the evacuation centers being overrun, it is rumored that CEDA either became infected themselves or that they have abandoned the public completely.The Survivors usually head for the nearest evacuation center in hope for help and to be transported out of the infected area, however by the time they arrive at the evacuation center, it has either been evacuated or completely overrun by the infected.

Here is a list of some of the evacuation centers:

Left 4 Dead:


 * Fairfield Municipal Park (Unconfirmed but assumed to be overrun)


 * Hewlitt Recreation Center (Overrun)


 * Brigham Junior High School (Overrun)


 * Fairfield Civic Arena (Overrun)


 * Borden High School (Overrun)


 * Mercy Hospital (Overrun)


 * Riverside First Church (Overrun)


 * Metro International Airport (Quarantined, Bombed by the military and then overrun)


 * Daughtery Farm (Assumed that CEDA was in control of it then taken over by the military and finally was overrun)

Left 4 Dead 2:


 * The Vannah Hotel (Evacuated and overrun)


 * Liberty Mall (Overrun)


 * Whispering Oaks Amusement Park (Maybe Evacuated and Overrun)


 * The Bus Station (CEDA once was in control of it then it was taken over by the military and was overrun)


 * The Bridge (CEDA once was in control of it then it was taken over by the military, maybe evacuated survivors and was overrun)

Superseded by the military
In Left 4 Dead 2, it appears that CEDA has been superseded by the military. A CEDA-run quarantine zone in The Parish has been closed and military-run quarantine zones can be seen throughout New Orleans. Also, CEDA-issued instructions on building a safe house demand that there be no guns in the safe house, but military-issued instructions on making safe houses encourage citizens to be armed.

Boomer Bile
''"Give the infected a taste of their own medicine with this CEDA-developed gastrointestinal projectile. Any zombie you soak with this puke grenade will be swarmed by common infected." -''Left 4 Dead 2 item description

In Left 4 Dead 2 there is a new grenade item called a Bile bomb. It appears to be manufactured by CEDA (since it is dropped by the CEDA Worker infected). When thrown the glass breaks, releasing the goo and causing common infected to swarm over whatever has been hit with the bomb. If a survivor is hit with this they do not run the risk of being blinded nor attracting a horde of common infected to attack them.

In early development the player had the ability to throw the boomer bile at fellow survivors, but the ability was removed and replaced.

Trivia

 * CEDA appears to be based off of the real-life FEMA, which has particular resonance in New Orleans, especially in its advice to cover windows with plastic sheeting and duct tape. The name may also be a play on the CDC, an organization involved in preventing infectious disease. The CEDA name and logo also resemble Civil Defense the Cold War era origination that preceded FEMA.


 * CEDA seems to have, at the very least, more knowledge of the Boomer than the other Special Infected, evident by the fact that they are able to manufacture boomer bile (Presumably extracted from Boomers) and a CEDA chart with information regarding the Boomer can be found in the first chapter of Dead Center.
 * In Rochelle's official photo several human CEDA workers are seen in haz-mat suit in the background inspecting the area and taking samples.
 * Valve store has released new CEDA work shirts. One is a industrial work shirt and the other is a formal polo shirt.
 * Large Decontamination Trailers can be seen parked around Dead Center in the second level, and one enterable version seen in The Parish. Humorously, text on the side of these trailers lables them as the "Disease Emergency Assessment Dispatch", or D.E.A.D.