Physical Security Threat Levels

Regardless of the facility be it a single family home or a whole compound. If in a long term survival situation have you consider establishing various threat levels? Either by color code, or numbers? Such as Level 1,2,3,4,5.

And what that means for daily activity. As in duties responsibilities and freedoms at level 1 vs level 5. Level 1 might mean total freedom for instance, level 4 might mean wearing body armor when leaving a building and level 5 might mean you don’t leave any buildings.

Just a rough example. Thoughts?

 

Or the same location, but a shift in the situation, or a new threat, or based on a bit of new intelligence could cause the person overseeing security to raise or lower the threat level.

But for that to have any meaning it would require clear direction as to what each level meant to the individual. For instance going from level 1 to level 2 might just mean increasing awareness. But jumping to level 3 might mean going everywhere in groups of four or more. Just examples.

 

Yes, Pacmantacman, For my house, (no longer my neighborhood watch association) and private road up to connecting to state road. It's based on procedures for working a "squawking seven five zero zero" - aircraft hijacking in progress.

We have 3 layers. The basic is just routing preparedness.

I always carry a clip-on small flashlight with white illumination plus other colors. Actual danger (I'm omitting much because I can do a lot of typing now but enough to see the levels) is a certain color light. At actual danger, Madam and I - we're empty nesters - will quietly and discretely lock the barn, well house, etc. Besides in field clothes, we both have hardhats and body armor. Every single hat, hard hat and helmet I have here - many - all have a Foxx whistle attached to chin strap.

Besides flashlight, I've cut up sturdy plastic school report covers...from Dollar General chain store...of 3 different colors...Same principle as color-coded flash light.

A decision must be made for some ultimate scares. A roll of barbed wire is pre-position at only entrance to this place.

And et cetra.

I did carry those color cards and a small flashlight to our first meeting last Saturday, but we got busy. and didn't ramble about this You did bring up an important - and neglected subject. Variations of above for home are used for us at highway rest areas, motels, ...

......

Some of my colleagues into this, add aspects like getting ready to secure the propane tank(s) and related. Madam and I are just a little older and reality requires trade-offs because of the infirmities of the aging process.

 

I don't have set levels but we do have discussed procedures for handling different levels of concern. Unlike in other places when you live in the country if you hear a noise in your house that you think might be a burglar you don't reach for the telephone. There is little chance of them showing up in less than an hour. You get a gun and go handle it. If it was a thief in your home you call the cops to come to haul the trach after you shoot him...several times. That is level one. Level 2 would have everyone up and with a gun, if there was someone outside that might be a threat. If they ARE a threat you shoot them and then call the cops. If they are trying to steal something I probably would yell at them and then shoot the gun. If they didn't drop what they had I would shoot them if they did or if it was a kid I would probably shoot over them and scare the crap out of them. All of this would be upped after TEOTWAWKI.

 

Level 5 = peace love and happiness. No threats, I might not even EDC.
Level 1 = All out war, blood in the streets could be attacked any time or anywhere.
IMO, the country is at level 2 right now.
SInce I believe we are at Threat level 2, I EDC lots of stuff I might need from a hand cuff key to lock picks, 2 or more knives, pepper spray, stun gun and a pistol. Plus general survival gear I might need. At least one long gun in the van is fully loaded at all times. INCH bag fully loaded and ready to roll out.

 

No specific threat levels defined here, but we do plan to challenge (as in the US military definition from the General Orders) persons on or near our property once the police scanner indicates post-disaster crimes are occurring. If the scanner is silent, or the deputies aren't reporting in for their shifts ("10-8") any longer, then our rules of engagement change.

 

Good morning TNT Tactical,

The "multi-level warning states" Pacmantacman introduced us to is the mini-version of what big city mayors do in prep for pending disaster responses.

There is a cost in both funds and time to go "full blast" rather than incremental stages. For example, closing the valves on LPG containers has a cost and time element to reconnect to appliances.

Much depend on specifics. If living alone, all info about situation is already available. If with someone, sometimes coded signals are necessary for security reasons.

If the security situation is eg a forest fire, I'll have my best boots on and be ready to vacate the premises. If the situation is 2 miles from here - a rural area - eg one of our Mario Andretti hopefuls - crashing a car into a dry forest - it is not worth "full blast" max level status. Even the nominal; wearing a hard hat requires wearing a wool "watch cap" so the plastic band does not directly touch skin, .....if it's a "false positive" , a false alert, I'd still have to wash the wool cap prior to repacking in kit. This takes time and energy and interferes with my social life. Thus, the elevates stages.

I operate on a budget but am prudent.

 

To answer the question directly, No we do not have security threat levels. Lonewolf stated it quite accurately. Things are normal or not normal. There is no in between. We have been fortunate that in the not normal times everyone has banded together to help. Nobody has ever come close to going off the rails. We have been through some situations where things were a little dicey, but they never got violent.

Not that it couldn't happen, but we have never had a need for a threat level assessment.

 

Keep in mind this isn’t a hard sell on my part, more of just introducing a concept that might have some value. I think it does. It’s hard to talk specifics because it can be whatever you make it to be, to fit your situation.

Going from 0 to 100 as a group and or maintaining that over a long period of time is going to be difficult. I might be beneficial to stair step down, or even up occasionally to get there from a logistical and emotional standpoint. Hyper vigilance can not be maintained constantly. The pressure may have to be released and reapplied at times, or if not needed it might at least be appropriate based on the circumstances.

Convenience and Safety are on opposite sides and you have to constantly evaluate what that reasonable balance is in some form or fashion.

 

With just some rough data what type of assessment would you do for my area? Consider it suburban. Small town, less than 5000 people. Violent crime rate is about 1/2 the national average. Property crime rate is about 85% of the national average. Predominantly white. Overwhelmingly Christian. Far enough away from metropolitan area that you have to have a reason to go there. No shopping, amusement parks, athletic venues, museums, that would bring in unwanted visitors. Serviced by two very highly regarded school districts. We have lived in the area for over 40 years. In my memory I can only think of two violent crimes and one property crime. We know our neighbors. The neighborhood has only one vehicle access. Would we require a five level Security Threat Assessment?

 

Definitely not in your current “normal” situation. Where you are being victimized is probably a product of bad life decisions. As in, you neighbor may get victimized often, based on the rotten culture in that house, where as you are completely safe.

The idea of the levels is that you probably are at a level 1 and will be for the foreseeable future. However that “normal” may change based on one event. Such as someone develops a personal grievance against you or a loved one for instance. Or a dispute with a neighbor. Threats are made, that can change things in a second.

This may suddenly cause a shift in what is normal, but certainly might not jump to full blown hunker down mode. It may be an overt credible threat, or an implied possible threat.

It might just mean doing a counter surveillance route, or doing a walk around the exterior at night to check the motion lights. Or checking in upon reaching your destination.

Day to day I’m not suggesting you have a detailed written out plan for each level, but you might. Or just use it to alert the family that there is a shift in normal and to be extra vigilant based on actionable intelligence.

For instance if you learn that cars are being broken into in your neighborhood that might mean no more solo walks at night, zero tolerance for leaving valuables in the vehicles, and possibly parking the car in the garage until the suspect is caught.

In a long term situation these levels would be more spelled out and intrusive. But asking about your right now situation it’s more of a concept than a written plan, at least in my mind.

 

Morgan,

Only you can prepare the threat analysis and assessments.

Your examples are past tense. Things change.

A weather emergency in Panhandle Florida, closed down Mexico Beach, Florida because of Hurricane Mitchell -not because of extra "umph" to punch but because of lack of human prep - to include "philosophy". MSF.com uses term "mental prep". More than 1,5oo responders arrived to help rectify situation. This resort community's complexion changed with this extra 1,500 people. All still basically under control. Transpose the Mexico Beach, Fl event to your suburban small town. Probably a parallel matter. All results about the same. Transpose the the Mexico Beach event to, let us say, Yuma, Arizona.

Your equivalent suburban small town near Yuma will have the key personalities.....consider the active participants here at MSF.com as these folks......will have all these key people learning and knowing the implications of the abbreviation "XDRTB"; Extremely Drug Resistant Tuberculous.

Things change.

Only you can prepare your Missouri area threat analysis and assessments.

There is a financial cost and labor hours to address what you prepare.

Who the Hades ever heard of Columbine, Colorado or Sierra Leone, West Africa (Ebola) ?!

Things change.