What do you know about your own neighbors? Do you know which ones are also prepping, or would be inclined to do so with a little prompting, or the ones who would turn you in as the ‘nut with a gun’ the minute they see you carrying gear for a trip to the range.
- Do you know who have useful skills such as a doctor, nurse, paramedic, firefighter, EMT, veterinarian, mechanic or someone who can build anything out of anything?
- Who has their own garden and grows their own food, knows how to preserve by canning, freeze drying or other methods?
Gathering intelligence on your neighbors, and your neighborhood, is an important part of preparedness. In emergency management we call it ‘threat analysis,’ – a process to identify potential risks and hazards that are in our community, whether natural, technological or man-made, such as; hazardous materials storage, floods, hurricanes, risk of terrorist attacks, etc. We then determine the likelihood of each occurring, and then our capabilities for preventing and responding to those threats. Based on this we develop a plan to improve on our capabilities.
FEMA’s formal version of this process is called THIRA (Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment).
This section will look at some skills to develop an area assessment, threat analysis and intelligence gathering skills and techniques. It also explains the readiness-condition scales, such as DEFCON, COGCON, EMERGCON and CERCON.
Watch: Threat Assessment: Start Here (2:58)
Tools from the video: the PLN-04 PREP-CON (Patreon) course, the Personal Preparedness Assessment Workbook and the Family Emergency Plan Workbook.
In this section
The daily threat reports, sector briefs and the rest of the intelligence work are on the Intelligence page.
IntelligenceRemember, Fortune Favors the Prepared
Semper Paratus, Semper Gumby