Moving from Prepare to Implement.

[GeraldTheBonzai]

Many years ago, I worked on a system that would become part of the Critical National Infrastructure. During the development and testing phases, we had spent a lot of effort writing recovery docs and processes. We had even tried them out to check that they worked. Prior to going live, the project got a new Chief Operations Officer. About a month after starting, he called a meeting really early in the morning - people were still on their way in. He got everyone onto the floor and announced "Assume the system has been compromised. Implement the complete disaster recovery plan, now".

It was chaos. We had done things in isolation, but had never gone from the initial "something bad has happened" to the "now we need to live with it and recover" states.

I have lots of lists and "plans" that I implement during the year. Ordering fuel for the winter, making sure the car is serviced, getting gardening done. But these are all sort of "mini" preps. As we have seen in other threads, there is a hell of a lot going on in the world at the moment, at the national macro level. I made the point recently that, to me, it feels like we have tipped over some threshold - the things we have been preparing for are now coming to fruition.

So my thoughts for this thread is to go to that next step. Its not "what do we need to prep for" but more "is it time to start activating those plans?". What are the criteria we should be looking for to prompt us to start implementing things?

At home, we've had several conversations along the lines of "you know, maybe we ought to do X/ buy Y / fix Z at some point...". With the way things are going at the moment, the mindset has changed - we WILL do X, we will buy Y, and Z is getting fixed, pronto.

I am now actively stockpiling medications and increasing my first aid stocks. When we go shopping, we are intentionally looking to add things to the trolley that can be stored - not just to replace things that have been used up, but to increase our reserves.

So what are the triggers? What event needs to happen for us to say "the sh*t is actually hitting the fan now". I suspect the general population wont do anything until the lights go out (looking at you NESO..). I'd rather get ahead of the herd.

Caveat: No politics. Move on - assume its happening. Practical prepping implementation activities.

[GillyBee]

Reading the news, I think we are about to get a nasty shock with all sorts of supply chain issues and price increases. My local garage is having trouble getting parts they could previously order next day - it now takes weeks/months. And we know about the medicine problems.
When covid hit I noticed that both my home Sainsbury's Local and the one near work started to have empty shelf trouble a good month before the chaos hit - the explanation was "staff shortage" but it got me thinking. If chains like this prioritise keeping the lights on in the big stores, then watching the state of the small ones can give me some advance warning of supply chain pressure.
So I am now balancing a do it now/get it mow mentality with not having actually received my promised pension/redundancy yet & having to watch the pennies.
I think we will be seeing a lot of "out of stock" notices soon & not just for air con and fans.

[GeraldTheBonzai]

I think we will be seeing a lot of "out of stock" notices soon & not just for air con and fans.

One of the things we struggle to get out heads around is the apparent randomness of unavailability of foodstuffs in the supermarkets. Vegetables seem to be particularly impact - you go into the store and, for instance, there is no broccoli, but last week there was stacks. Stuff that you think would be in season but shelves are bare. On that basis, we now keep our shops smaller but rotate between the supermarkets. If we see something we just buy it. Seriously thinking about getting another freezer.

[jennyjj01]

As a gesture towards this, I do recommend a week or more of an 'everythings down' practice. Actually have the family dine on nothing but reserve foods and even drag out those water filters and live from the water in the wheelie bin.
Nothing like it for showing you some of the gaps in your reserves.

Of course, replenish as you go, rather than burning up reserves.

[Arzosah]

We had done things in isolation, but had never gone from the initial "something bad has happened" to the "now we need to live with it and recover" states.

That's an interesting idea, about integrating all the separate plans.

As we have seen in other threads, there is a hell of a lot going on in the world at the moment, at the national macro level. I made the point recently that, to me, it feels like we have tipped over some threshold - the things we have been preparing for are now coming to fruition.

I feel slightly differently about it - I agree that we've tipped over some threshold, but the need for activation is still a *little* way down the line.

So my thoughts for this thread is to go to that next step. Its not "what do we need to prep for" but more "is it time to start activating those plans?". What are the criteria we should be looking for to prompt us to start implementing things?

At home, we've had several conversations along the lines of "you know, maybe we ought to do X/ buy Y / fix Z at some point...". With the way things are going at the moment, the mindset has changed - we WILL do X, we will buy Y, and Z is getting fixed, pronto.

Erm, well, having very slightly disagreed with you, I must confess I'm having exactly the same sorts of conversations double glazing, the router, my awful armchair, trainers, things that have some appreciable cost. I'm pretty well stocked up on food right now, but I'm trying to use dried peas and beans rather than frozen and tinned - the tinned, in particular, will be immediately handy when the power's first off. Easing into it, so to speak, rather than having to go full post-apoca straight away

So what are the triggers? What event needs to happen for us to say "the sh*t is actually hitting the fan now". I suspect the general population wont do anything until the lights go out

The trigger for me has been that so many triggers are happening at once - I started to list them and decided not to, because by definition it brings in politics in some ways. I think anybody who's bothered to join this forum knows *what* the triggers might be. It's just the numbers of them right now, and the seeming lack of response from anyone in charge in the various arenas.

[Frnc]

Bear in mind that shtf is most likely to happen gradually, and to different people at different times, in different ways. But I see no signs of a major tipping point at present.

We did have Covid a few years back. Pandemic is in the top 3 most likely high impact risks we face. The other two are water outage and terrorist attack in public place.

Next most high impact likely risks are
National power outage
Disruption of satellite tech, eg GPS, but can be quite a bit more
Disruption of national data infrastructure eg internet, banking etc
Digital resilience failure
Severe space weather
Cold and snow
Emerging infectious disease
Deliberate disruption of UK space systems and space‑based services
Technological failure at a UK critical financial market infrastructure

Third most likely, high impact risks are
Public disorder
* Reception and integration of British nationals arriving from overseas
* Assassination of high-profile figure
* Major outbreak of plant pest – *Xylella fastidiosa*
* Medium-scale CBRN attacks
* Conventional attacks on infrastructure
* National gas and electricity shortfall
* High temperatures and heatwaves
* Coastal flooding
* Fluvial flooding
* Surface water flooding
* Cyber attacks on infrastructure
* Food supply contamination
* Volcanic eruption (ash affecting flights and even weather)
* Storms
* Major outbreak of plant pest – *Agrilus planipennis*

Methodology. I started with
Government risk register p 19
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... r_2026.pdf

Maps Impact vs Likelihood. Top right corner is highest risk, highest likelihood. I called this diagonal 1. It is empty, thankfully!

Next diagonal is Impact 5 likelihood 4 and Impact 4 likelighood 5. Diagonal 2. This is my top 3, listed above.

Next group is diagonal 3, and last group diagonal 4. That's as far as I got. There are 9 diagonals in total. I tried to use GPT but it can't see the diagram. It did produce that last list, but I had to spoon feed it info.

NB. They don't seem to include financial crash, nor rampant inflation. Obviously these are risks we face.

On a topical note, they do include disruption to global trade. It is impact 3, likelihood 3, it is diagonal 5 of 9, so I didn't get that far.

[Frnc]

I managed to upload a screenshot of the diagram and GPT has analysed it as I asked, hopefully. Here is what it wrote.

Certainly. Based on the matrix you shared and the risk descriptions you've provided, here's the complete prioritisation by **diagonal**, from highest combined impact/likelihood to lowest.

---

# Diagonal 1 (Highest)

### Impact 5 / Likelihood 5

**No risks**

**Total: 0**

---

# Diagonal 2

### Impact 5 / Likelihood 4

* 38 Water infrastructure failure or loss of drinking water
* 56 Pandemic

### Impact 4 / Likelihood 5

* 3 Terrorist attacks in publicly accessible locations

**Total: 3 risks**

---

# Diagonal 3

### Impact 5 / Likelihood 3

* 25a National power outage

### Impact 4 / Likelihood 4

* 22 Disruption of space-based services
* 41 National disruption to data infrastructure
* 42 Digital resilience failure
* 49 Severe space weather
* 52 Low temperatures and snow
* 57 Outbreak of an emerging infectious disease
* 64 Deliberate disruption of UK space systems and
space‑based services

### Impact 3 / Likelihood 5

* 11 Cyber attacks on infrastructure
* 30b Technological failure at a UK critical financial market infrastructure
* 48 Disaster response in the UK Overseas Territories

**Total: 11 risks**

---

# Diagonal 4

### Impact 5 / Likelihood 2

* 7 Larger-scale CBRN attacks
* 27 Civil nuclear accident
* 28 Radiation release from overseas nuclear site

### Impact 4 / Likelihood 3

* 9 Medium-scale CBRN attacks
* 10 Conventional attacks on infrastructure
* 26 National gas and electricity shortfall
* 51 High temperatures and heatwaves
* 53a Coastal flooding
* 53b Fluvial flooding
* 53c Surface water flooding
* 65 Nuclear miscalculation not involving the UK or its allies

### Impact 3 / Likelihood 4

* 11 Cyber attacks on infrastructure
* 39 Food supply contamination
* 45 Volcanic eruption
* 50 Storms
* 59b Plant pest – *Agrilus planipennis*
* 60 Public disorder
* 62 Reception and integration of British nationals arriving from overseas

### Impact 2 / Likelihood 5

* 6 Assassination of high-profile figure
* 59a Plant pest – *Xylella fastidiosa*

**Total: 20 risks**

---

# Diagonal 5 (Middle)

### Impact 5 / Likelihood 1

* 27 Civil nuclear accident
* 28 Radiation release from overseas nuclear site

### Impact 4 / Likelihood 2

* 23 Loss of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT)
* 37 Reservoir/dam collapse
* 58a Foot and Mouth Disease

### Impact 3 / Likelihood 3

* 4 Terrorist attacks on transport
* 12 Disruption to global oil trade routes
* 24 Simultaneous loss of communications
* 25b Regional electricity failure
* 30a Failure at a systemically important retail bank
* 43 Damage to National Gas Transmission Network
* 46 Earthquake
* 47 Overseas humanitarian crisis (natural hazard)
* 55 Poor air quality
* 58b Highly pathogenic avian influenza
* 58d African Swine Fever

### Impact 2 / Likelihood 4

* 2 Northern Ireland related terrorism
* 8 Smaller-scale CBRN attacks
* 13 Major adult social care provider failure
* 14 Insolvency of supplier(s) of critical public services

### Impact 1 / Likelihood 5

* None

**Total: 21 risks**

---

# Diagonal 6

### Impact 4 / Likelihood 1

* 21 Aviation collision

### Impact 3 / Likelihood 2

* 54 Drought

### Impact 2 / Likelihood 3

* 20 Accident involving high-consequence dangerous goods
* 61 Industrial action
* 63 Criminal Justice System disruption

### Impact 1 / Likelihood 4

* 1 International terrorist attack
* 15 Insolvency affecting fuel supply

**Total: 7 risks**

---

# Diagonal 7

### Impact 3 / Likelihood 1

* 17 Large passenger vessel accident
* 19 Vessel blocking a major UK port
* 31 Fire/explosion at COMAH site
* 32 Toxic chemical release at COMAH site
* 33 Fire/explosion on offshore oil or gas installation
* 34 Fire/explosion at fuel pipeline
* 35 Fire/explosion at major accident hazard pipeline
* 58c African horse sickness

### Impact 2 / Likelihood 2

* 5 Strategic hostage taking
* 16 Rail accident
* 40 Major fire
* 44 Wildfire

### Impact 1 / Likelihood 3

* None

**Total: 12 risks**

---

# Diagonal 8

### Impact 2 / Likelihood 1

* 18 Major maritime pollution incident
* 29 Radiation exposure from transported/stolen/lost goods
* 36 Laboratory release of hazardous pathogen

### Impact 1 / Likelihood 2

* None

**Total: 3 risks**

---

# Diagonal 9 (Lowest)

### Impact 1 / Likelihood 1

**No risks**

**Total: 0**

This diagonal ranking is a useful way to turn the 5×5 matrix into a single ordered priority list while still respecting both impact and likelihood.

I actually think this diagonal approach is **more analytically useful than the original matrix**. It preserves the government's impact/likelihood assessment but gives you a single ordered hierarchy:

* **Tier 1** – Diagonal 2 (the three most concerning risks)
* **Tier 2** – Diagonal 3 (the next 11)
* **Tier 3** – Diagonal 4 (20 risks)
* ...
* **Tier 7** – Diagonal 8 (the lowest-priority plotted risks)

It also makes comparisons between editions of the National Risk Register much easier—you can immediately see whether a risk has moved up or down a whole diagonal rather than trying to compare positions on a grid.

[Peter]

I see the National Risk Register now posts the threat to the supply of drinking water due to
infrastructure failure or a cyber attack as CRITICAL.

THREE DAYS WITHOUT WATER CAN BE FATAL.

So make plans now to collect, store and purify rainwater. Waterbutts filled from downspouts,
spread out tarpaulins, kids paddling pool. Thin bleach (no perfume), oasis tablets, Milton.
Berkey filter or homemade version, or even the bits and pieces for a sand filter (TEOTWAWKI).

[GeraldTheBonzai]

This should be zoomable

[GeraldTheBonzai]

The trigger for me has been that so many triggers are happening at once - I started to list them and decided not to, because by definition it brings in politics in some ways. I think anybody who's bothered to join this forum knows *what* the triggers might be. It's just the numbers of them right now, and the seeming lack of response from anyone in charge in the various arenas.

I think this is where I am. I can imagine a scenario where there is some kind of national incident that triggers a lot of people to go into implement mode. However, at the same time its exactly these sort of scenarios where you would hope/expect the Government to get involved, as these are the sort of events that are covered in the national risk register.

However, I think there is a second route that some people might follow. Its' essentially the "pecked to death by ducks" scenario. One failure is an annoyance, 2 are a pain, but if enough come along at once, some people are going to think "thats it, I've had enough, I can no longer depend on <pick whatever services or infrastructure you want> and I need to now take things into my own hands". That will be a very personal tipping point, as everyones situation is different. What I am wondering though if that personal trigger point has been given the same amount of thought as might have been given to general prepping.

Has everybody considered what that "red line" is that, once crossed, you think "enough is enough". I've personally started thinking about this, and realised that I didn't actually know. I'm prepping, in case SHTF, but I hadn't actually worked out, for me, what the Sh*t would look like, what the fan actually was, in real terms, and how much sh*t needed to hit it before I decided to duck. It was quite sobering (so I had a beer).