Annual Threat Assessments + Crisis Decision Making + EQ Early Warning & More
Profiles in Preparedness #25
I’ve been sitting on a lesson that’s surfaced in two different projects I’ve worked on lately—one focused on wildfire evacuation planning, the other a utility exercise simulating a major power outage.
Both reminded me that in nearly every disaster, a small segment of the community often requires the most coordination, support, and resources. But here’s the thing, when you meet those needs early, much of the pressure on the system begins to ease.
In wildfires, it’s often older adults and people with disabilities who need the most support: accessible transportation during evacuation, specialized medical equipment, and trained caregivers at shelters. In power outages, it’s hospitals and long-term care centers that can’t afford delays in restoring electricity to their facilities.
When those needs go unmet, the pressure in the response intensifies. Media scrutiny increases. Political leaders start asking hard questions. And the public starts to lose trust. It can feel like the entire response is under fire.
Prioritizing these groups can introduce trade-offs. Restoring power to a hospital first might delay full service to surrounding neighborhoods. Equipping a shelter to meet complex medical needs might mean another site opens more slowly. But these aren’t failures in the plan, they’re reflections of sound strategy and clear priorities.
By addressing the most urgent needs first, you help stabilize the entire system. Vulnerable populations are protected, cascading risks are reduced, and the rest of the response has a stronger foundation to build on.
Sometimes, improving a response isn’t about doing more. Sometimes, it’s about knowing who your plan must work for, and designing around that from the start. When you do, the rest of the operation becomes clearer and more manageable. When you do, the rest of the response can fall into place.
But here’s the kicker: this takes leadership. Someone has to step forward and make the tough calls—about priorities, resources, and timing—often before all the information is available and under intense scrutiny. These decisions aren’t always popular in the moment, but they’re essential for keeping the response focused on what matters most.
Inside The CP Journal
Here are some of the articles that were added to the site this week.
Academy subscribers: check out this week’s new PM in EM Playbook entry, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants | The Document Review, and discover how launching your projects on the lessons others have already learned can accelerate your community’s (or organization's) readiness.
Explore our new case study showing how we helped a city/county Office of Emergency Management define clear success criteria for EOC activations and map its highest‑priority preparedness projects to bring a sense of calm focus to their operations and annual work plan.
🌴 Watch Office reports now cover the City and County of Los Angeles, our first new city since launching this newsletter, with more on the way.
This Week‘s Reads
Here are a few standout reads from this week with insights, ideas, and perspectives that caught my attention.
Article | California’s earthquake early warning system let many know about Monday’s temblor. This Los Angeles Times article highlights how many Californians learned about last week's 5.2 earthquake with an alert pushed to their phones before they felt the trembling. Articles highlighting the positive side of public alerts are rare, and I love seeing hard-won innovations deliver real-world early notifications. But the article is also a reminder that an alert alone isn’t a safety plan and seconds matter only if people instinctively act. Give this piece a read.
Report | Annual Threat Assessment - Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The annual threat assessment produced by the U.S. Intelligence Community opens with a stark reminder: "A diverse set of foreign actors are targeting U.S. health and safety, critical infrastructure, industries, wealth, and government." This report doesn't just catalog threats but includes recent activity and projections for 2025 for transnational criminal and terrorist organizations, as well as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Assessing threats through the lenses of military, cyber, space, biosecurity, economics, and technology, the report includes a discussion on possible scenarios to consider in the year ahead. This includes Beijing applying strong coercive pressure against Taiwan, transnational criminal organizations diversifying their income streams, Russia's focus on the Arctic, Iran looking to push America out of the region and develop surrogate networks inside of the U.S., and North Korea's pursuit of conventional military capabilities. Finally, the report concludes with a section on the growing cooperation between and among these adversaries and the potential for hostilities with any one of them to draw in another.
Article | Ransomware attacks surge 69% across global education sector. While preparing last week's Watch Office briefs, this article caught my eye. Comparitech counted 2,190 ransomware strikes worldwide in Q1 2025 (up by more than a thousand year‑over‑year) and the education sector alone saw a 69% jump. Average ransom? $608 K. Perhaps most sobering for U.S. readers: 82% of K‑12 districts suffered a cyber incident in an 18-month period. For anyone trying to turn “cyber risk” from abstract worry into a budget line, the numbers here do the talking.
Podcast | "The Debrief." I came across this podcast hosted by Jon Becker this week and absolutely recommend it. Two back-to-back listens: Episode 54 went through evacuation decision-making at the start of the Eaton Fire (January 2025 in Los Angeles), while Episode 55 dissects DOJ’s critical‑incident review of Uvalde, zeroing in on command, comms, and stalled action. Both stories reinforce a truth we tackle daily in public safety: real‑time chaos exposes the quality of your pre‑event training and leadership culture. Give them a listen.
When You’re Ready
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Patrick, have you read "Antifragile" by Nassim Taleb? Most well known for his book "Black Swan," he extensively discusses the idea of resilience and asymmetrical effects in "Antifragile." As the title suggests, the topic is about systems (organic and organizational) that get stronger when they're stressed, rather than weaker.
This occurred to me because the opening of this post reminded me of the Pareto principle (as generally used, it would suggest that 20% of the population requires 80% of the resources), but Taleb delves much deeper into the topic, exploring how phase transitions occur (e.g., a small increase in the number of cars on the road suddenly extends commute times by a large amount), and also how considering the relative upside vs. downside of actions can aid decision-making. In other words, if there's a big potential upside and a small potential downside to a course of action, it's advisable; the opposite is equally true.