Preparedness goes wrong when it runs on vibes — whatever threat felt scariest on the news this week. The fix is a small, repeatable calculation that ranks threats by how much they actually matter to you, so your next dollar and next hour go where they’ll do the most good.
It’s built on three numbers, each scored 1–9. The system is a simplified version of the FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis) used in engineering, adapted for a household:
- Impact — how badly this hurts an unprepared average family if it happens.
- Vulnerability — how badly it would hurt you, given what you’ve already done about it.
- Likelihood — how probable it is for your location and situation.
Multiply them: Impact × Vulnerability × Likelihood = Threat Rating. Sort the list by that number and you have a priority order built on data instead of dread.
One thing to hold onto before we start: this isn’t about being exact. It’s about being consistent. The scores only exist to compare threats against each other, so as long as you rate every threat the same way, the ranking is trustworthy even if any single number is arguable.
Step 1 — list your threats
Pull the environmental ones from your area — your Threat Report seeds these — and add the personal ones the data can’t know: a job in a volatile industry, a family member on a medication that needs refrigeration, a chemical plant two miles upwind. Don’t filter yet. The rating is what does the filtering.
Step 2 — score the three numbers
Use anchors so you stay consistent from threat to threat. Impact and Vulnerability share the same 1–9 scale:
- 1 — essentially no disruption to daily life.
- 3 — a minor disruption, or a minor injury to a family member.
- 5 — a moderate disruption, or a moderate injury.
- 7 — a major disruption, or a serious injury.
- 9 — changes everything, and/or likely means the death of a family member.
The difference between the two: Impact scores the hit to a family with no preparations. Vulnerability scores the hit to you as you are today — your preps, your location, your situation. Vulnerability is the honest one, and it’s the one you control.
Likelihood is scored by how often it actually happens, which keeps you from inflating the dramatic and rare:
- 1 — never happened, never expected to.
- 3 — has happened in the last 20 years, or is likely in the next 20.
- 5 — last 5 years, or likely in the next 5.
- 7 — last 2 years, or likely in the next 2.
- 9 — happens multiple times a year.
Take a house fire as the worked example from the book. Impact 9 — unprepared, a fire can kill someone. Vulnerability 7 — an all-brick home and good fire habits mean nothing critical is lost, but it would still hit the family hard. Likelihood 6 — reasonable precautions lower it, but there are kids in the house. That’s 9 × 7 × 6 = 378.
Step 3 — set the goal, and find the gap
Here’s the step most people skip, and it’s the one that turns a ranking into a to-do list. Rate each threat a second time — as it would be after you finish preparing for it. Impact and Likelihood don’t move; a fire is still deadly and still possible. But Vulnerability drops, because that’s the number your preparation actually buys down.
- Goal Rating = Impact × future Vulnerability × Likelihood. For the fire, if preparation takes Vulnerability from 7 down to 5: 9 × 5 × 6 = 270.
- Opportunity Rating = Threat Rating − Goal Rating. 378 − 270 = 108. That’s how much improvement is on the table for this threat between today and your goal.
You can’t change Likelihood or Impact much. Vulnerability is the number preparation moves — and the gap between where it is now and where it could be is your work.
Step 4 — prioritize by two lists, not one
Don’t just work the top of the Threat Rating list. Sort your threats twice:
- By Threat Rating, largest first — the top five or so are your biggest threats today.
- By Opportunity Rating, largest first — the top five or so are where you can make the biggest change.
There’s usually overlap, and that’s fine. You don’t need exactly ten; six or fourteen is fine. Keep the working list small enough to be manageable, aimed at the best bang for the buck, with enough variety that you don’t burn out. Those are the only threats you work on — until you re-rate.
Bottom line
That’s the whole loop: rate, find the biggest gaps, close them, re-rate. The numbers going down over time is your progress, made visible.
