james wilson said:
If security exists at all, it derives from one’s own ability to perform, not predict.

I think that sums it up very well.
Examples from history abound, but one in particular comes to mind:
In the years leading up to WW2, there was great anxiety in Britain that tbe next war would involve large-scale air raids in which poison gas would be dropped (an idea “popularised” by the 1936 Alexander Korda film “Things to Come”). This led to gas masks being issued to all civilians, including special versions for babies. The air raids came, but with explosives and incindiaries, not gas, and the masks were largly consigned to cupboards and forgotten.
In contrast, the use of the London Underground system as shelter from bombing was not planned for. In fact, it was planned to prevent people taking refuge underground, for reasons of morale rather than the danger that heavier-than-air gases would be used. The use of the system as a public shelter was initially a large-scale act of civil disobedience, in which the performers showed better judgement than the predictors, but one which enabled the city to continue functioning throughout the war. (The last V2 stuck London on 27 March 1945).