Emergency Planning Strategies

Part 1: An Emergency Planning Guide for Facilities

Part 2: How to Categorize Risk

How to Categorize Risk

By Robert Lang, CPP - March 2009

A risk analysis should identify all threats and hazards to a facility and then place them in a matrix that categorizes risks from high occurrence and high consequences (tornados in the Midwest) to low occurrence and low consequences (single water pipe leak in out building). Other categories are high occurrence and low consequence (Internet probes to facility Web sites) and low occurrence and high consequence (workplace shooter or terrorist act).

OCCURRENCE

1 = Remote

2 = Probable

3 = Highly Probable

CONSEQUENCES

1 = Minimal

2 = Medium

3 = Major

SEVERITY	3	Moderate Risk	Substantial Risk	Critical Risk
	2	Tolerable Risk	Moderate Risk	Substantial Risk
	1	Minimal Risk	Tolerable Risk	Moderate Risk
		1	2	3
	LIKELIHOOD

Robert F. Lang, CPP, is the assistant vice president for strategic security and safety at Kennesaw State University. Before that, he held the positions of director of homeland security and director of research security at Georgia Tech. At the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, he was the head security planner for the Olympic Village on Georgia Tech’s campus.