How prepared is your household for a natural disaster?

A survey commissioned by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) revealed that it’s younger people (under 30s) who are most at risk of being caught unprepared. But getting ready can be relatively straightforward.

Hunker down

New Zealand is at risk of earthquakes, tsunamis, land slips, and even volcanic eruptions.

The probability of a large-scale earthquake in New Zealand is high. It's not a matter of if, but when. There are eight major faults and fault systems in New Zealand, with many smaller faults which rupture less frequently. Some of these smaller faults were responsible for the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, which shows that a small fault can have a devastating impact. To give a sense of scale, it was some of these smaller faults which were responsible for causing the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, showing that a small fault can have a devastating impact.

The Alpine Fault line sits beneath the South Island and has ripple effects impacting the North Island as well. On average, it ruptures every 250 years. The last major earthquake on the Alpine Fault was in 1717. It shunted land horizontally by 8m and uplifted the mountains a couple of metres. The likelihood of a large-scale quake in the next 50 years is considered high risk, at 75%.

Severe weather events are becoming more frequent due to climate change – from flash floods and landslips to droughts, which are predicted to double or triple in frequency in eastern and northern NZ by 2040.

In an emergency, you could be without water and power for days and roads could be damaged and unusable.

Everyone should have a home emergency plan and kit, with all the essentials your household needs to last three days or more.

What’s stopping us from preparing?

For those who are prepared for a disaster, NEMA’s survey found that the biggest drivers of being prepared were disasters that have directly impacted people. For example, after the 2016 Kaikoura quakes, there was a sharp rise in awareness of the potential for a disaster and more people started to prepare.

According to NEMA, the most important barrier to address is people not knowing what they need to do. Other barriers come from thinking ‘it’ll never happen where I live’ and ‘it’ll never happen to me’.

Are you prepared?

We found two unprepared households and gave them the task of putting together a kit and plan. Bee and David, a couple in their early 20s, share an apartment in central Wellington with a third flatmate.

“People our generation, especially people flatting, we don’t really take into consideration emergency situations … we wouldn’t be prepared at all,” David said.

Bee said: “We’re not really taught that we should have an emergency kit; it’s never really been mentioned to me. I would worry quite a bit if I was trapped in my house in the middle of an emergency. I don’t think I’d have all the things I need to survive it.”

The couple went on to explain that for people their age who are dealing with the rising cost of everyday living, an emergency is the last thing on their minds.

However, they agreed: “If we were to experience it, that's really what would push us to make those emergency preparedness plans.”

Their landlord had stashed a couple of buckets and bottles of water as a kind of very basic emergency kit in the back of a cupboard. And they have a few things they could scavenge from around home, but it wouldn’t last long. They’d need to pop out to the shops to “grab some stuff”.

But there’s a good chance you won’t be able to nip to the shops. Shops or roads might be damaged, and power outages can impact eftpos and ATMs.

If you don’t need to evacuate, you’ll probably be told to stay home. You’ll need to survive on the supplies you have, possibly for a week or more.

Putting together a plan and kit

Bee and David followed our guides, how to make a home emergency plan and how to make a home emergency kit.

"I was pretty surprised at how effortless it was to create an emergency kit, considering the amount of goods that went into it," Bee said.

Online shopping made getting the bulk of their kit together even easier. Other items, such as food and batteries, were added to their weekly grocery shop.

“We put what we already had at home in the emergency kit and all we needed to do was buy a little extra next time we went shopping,” Bee said.

All items needed to make your kit are easily found at shops such as supermarkets, hardware stores, The Warehouse and Kmart. You’ll also need to think about members of your household who might need specific items (for example, babies, children, or pets) and extras like medication.

As for the emergency plan, households are encouraged to fill out a document which covers all the information they might need should the power be cut. Once your mobile phone battery dies, you won’t be able to easily search for phone numbers or google a suitable meeting point, so it’s important to agree these things in advance, note them in a written or printed document and store this in your emergency kit.

After completing their kit, Bee and David said they felt like they were ready for any emergency now.

“Having a kit and the plan ready to go really puts my mind at ease,” said Bee.

“Everything may look quite overwhelming but when you break it down, everything's actually really simple,” David said. “It's just your normal everyday things.”

The kit doesn’t have to be stored all in one place. You just need to know where everything is and make sure it's accessible. You'd be wise to keep a torch somewhere handy in case you have to find the rest of your kit in the dark.

Preparing as a family

The Salts are a family of five who live in their own home in Lyall Bay, Wellington. Like Bee and David, they didn’t have an emergency kit and plan.

Liana and Andrew have three kids, Bailey, seven, Ella, five, and Kainoa, seven months, plus the family dog Izzy.

The family admit they’re unprepared and say it’s partly down to the Kiwi “she’ll be right” attitude.

“As Kiwis we’re probably quite arrogant in thinking that we’ll be fine, we’d probably just muddle through it, and we think we’ll be okay – but the reality is that we wouldn’t last long,” Liana said.

“I’ve always been of the mind that if something were to happen, I would just put running shoes on and run to higher ground and it’ll be fine … but now I’ll have the kids and Kainoa.”

In an emergency, “as an adult you can kind of grit it out, but it’s going to be so much worse if you have kids suffering alongside you”.

Both the baby and the dog require special food.

“An adult will eat whatever’s in front of them to survive, but our kids are different,” Liana said. “Ella, our middle child, is a really picky eater. She’d starve herself rather than eat something she doesn’t like, so adding snacks for the kids that we know they’ll eat was important for us –but it did mean we had to pack more into the box.”

Taking the time to prepare made Liana realise “this stuff can actually happen”.

“I like to just pretend that nothing would ever happen, so I don’t think about it,” she said. “The plan made me work through different scenarios in my head.”

Their home is near the ocean, so they sat down as a family and showed the kids where their house is on a map and where the tsunami safe zones are.

Andrew said: “I think it’s really important to involve the kids – they need to understand what the stuff in the kit is, and also have those discussions around about what they may not have if something does happen … Letting them know that while Mum and Dad may not be there straight away, we’ll be trying to get back to them as soon as possible.”

For Liana, another big consideration is the cellphone network going down.

“If the cell network went down or overloaded because everyone was trying to call everyone, you may not be able to get in touch with people or find information that you need.

“We rely so much on the internet and mobile lines to stay in touch and know what’s going on, we forget that information won’t be at our fingertips.”

Putting the plan together meant Liana and Andrew had to think about where the family might be on any given day. If the kids are at school, who would pick them up? Where would they all meet?

“It’s just about making sure everyone’s all on the same page,” Andrew said.

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Emergency planning video

We talk to two different households making their home emergency kits and emergency plans.

Ready to put your own kit and plan together? Check out our guides, how to make a home emergency plan and how to make a home emergency kit.