[The Reaper]

The way we do risk assessment in the Army is to compare the likelihood to the potential severity to obtain a level of risk and then in the case of higher risk activities, attempt to mitigate it.

I strongly suspect that this was a civilian industry practice we adopted, it has its pros and cons. To me, the key point is risk awareness. Outside of airborne operations, many people had never before looked at what they were doing and what could happen with a good thorough review. The issue beyond that is organizations that become risk averse, failing to adequately prepare their soldiers due to the possibility that someone could be hurt.

In the case of a hurricane, we have pretty good models and predictions to help with our analysis. With a potential avian flu pandemic, as mugwump has pointed out, we have a lot of fluctuations in both the probability of HTH transmission occuring, and the potential mortaility rate. This may be a case where you have to review your normal preparations and plan to add what you can use in any disaster anyway now, and to pick up a few more items or make changes in our activity as we see which way this may break. The key is going to be identifying a critical point, and acting quickly once that is reached, before the supply system is cleared out and good social order breaks down. For example, it is a bit late to be shopping for Tamiflu, and it would not have a lot of potential use other than in a flu pandemic. OTOH, buying a generator could be a good move for a number of contingencies. You have to make your plan with the best available knowledge and resources, make changes as necessary, and act on it at the appropriate times.

TR