Threat Assessments

In past couple videos, we picked through our area’s threats and hazards.

This is a core part of your Area Study, so I would encourage you to run this list by like-minded friends and family, your neighborhood watch, preparedness group, or whatever aligned group you may have.

The goal is 100% accountability for local threats and hazards, because what we can identify before the emergency is what we can specifically and deliberately plan for.

Now that we have this list of threats and hazards, the next step is to begin assessing them because not all threats are equal. Some will be high priority and some will be low priority, but how do we determine that?

There are really just two factors that we need to identify. The first is likelihood, so how likely are we to be targeted or impacted by this threat or hazard, and the second factor is impact, or how significant will this threat or hazard’s consequences be?

So what I want you to do now is examine each item on your list of threats and hazards, and identify each item’s likelihood and impact, either Low or High.

I keep it simple here. If you want to assess on a 10-point scale or some other metric, go ahead. I’m not going to overcomplicate this — High Likelihood or Low Likelihood then High Impact or Low Impact?

So let’s talk about how we determine likelihood.

The first step is to identify your baseline. How frequently do these events occur?

The Texas Gulf Coast gets hit with a hurricane and we get hit with the hurricane’s remnants every year or two, sometimes more often. We can just count on having a hurricane each year. That’s a relatively High Likelihood event.

We get tornados every year in my county. They are relatively high frequency events. They’re going to happen. They have a High Likelihood.

Winter storms, like an ice storm or blizzard are relatively low likelihood events, they happen probably every 3-5 years maybe even 8-10.

Short-term power outages are not uncommon, so I’ll say that’s a relatively High Likelihood event.

I rarely get mugged. I’ve never been mugged. Relatively low likelihood for my AO.

Flat tires? It’s possible on any given day, but I can’t remember the last time I had a flat tire, so relatively low likelihood in my AO.

How many times have we had a Golden Horde or a Grid Down event in my area? Approximately zero. This is a low frequency event, relatively low likelihood on any given day, any given week or month, even any given year.

After we establish baseline frequency for each item, then we can think about anticipating events that are unlikely today but may increase in likelihood in the future.

So, how likely is this threat or hazard to affect me in the next 12 months?

And we can extend that out, based on what we believe could happen in the next 2-3 years, so a major financial crisis, a war with China or some other country, a World War III scenario, etc., all those events become more likely over the next 2-3 years, on a strategic time frame, so we have to acknowledge some events will become more likely over the future.

Next, after we assess likelihood, we will assess impact and we’re looking at both direct and indirect impacts to you, your family, your household, your neighborhood, to your AO.

We assess direct impacts across four factors: physical damage, casualties, displacement, and impact to friendly operations.

So what’s the risk of physical damage? Well, a hurricane or tornado is potentially catastrophic, so they’re both High Impact to me and my neighborhood. A temporary power outage, I might have some food spoil, or I might be a little hot or a little cold for a few hours, so that’s relatively low impact there.

Next is casualties, what is the risk that this threat or hazard produces casualties, either physical injury or illness. A hurricane can produce casualties, an internet outage probably won’t.

The third factor is displacement, so will it force you to move from your home? Will it displace you? A hurricane, possibly through catastrophic flooding. I remember when I was in high school, we had a multi-day water outage because a main pipe burst, so I had to drive over to my aunt and uncle’s house to take a shower. That’s not exactly displacement, but a long term, severe drought in a desert environment where water infrastructure was also failing could displace a lot of people.

And the fourth factor is impact to friendly operations. For instance, an internet outage during a protest or riot, when I’m trying to actively gather real-time information, is going to have a high impact to friendly operations, although it won’t physically cause me harm. So that’s our fourth factor.

And then we look at indirect effects, and those are going to be economic and social or psychological. A tornado that destroys part of your town or neighborhood will have a high economic impact. Another pandemic and all the follow-on effects will have a high economic and psychological impact.

Another factor to consider is duration, how long will this threat event or hazard last? A tornado will be over in 15 minutes, a pandemic could last for years.

And so we want to assess each threat and hazard for impact, High or Low and be able to describe how we’re going to be impacted — because that’s the risk you prepare for. X event happens, it affects us these three ways, and here’s how we can prepare for it, or here are some countermeasures we can take .

And the end result is that we wind up with a quadrant that looks like this, with the highest priority threats being those that are the highest likelihood and the highest impact.

Now here’s a question for you. High Likelihood and High Impact threats are going to be our top priority. I want to make sure I’m addressing those first because they’re the most likely to hit us the hardest. But which quadrant do you think comes next? Think about it.

The answer is… Low Likelihood and High Impact. Lower frequency events, they happen less often, but when they do, it’s a really big deal.

What we’ve just covered is an expedited way to assess threats and hazards once you’ve identified them. We can also start getting specific about the impacts on us, and those are specific effects we need to be preparing for.

In the next video, we’re going to take a brief look at risk and vulnerability and get even more specific about how we prepare for these local effects.