Be Ready

Being ready means having your own plan in place for an emergency or failure of essential services that we take for granted. To be ready:

1. Find out what could happen
   Look under Hazards Information for what to do in each type of emergency.
    
2. Create a Household Emergency Plan
   Check your insurances and make sure your house is quake safe, then make your plan - look on the Get Thru website for a guide.
    
3. Complete a Househeld Emergency Checklist
   Print off a checklist from the Get Thru website.
    
4. Have a Getaway Kit
   Look on the Get Thru website for contents.
    
5. Practice and maintain your plan with your family

Remember after disaster, initial help during the first three days may be very limited.   Although in Hawke's Bay, we have a small team of dedicated and hard working civil defence staff and volunteers who manage our Civil Defence Centres for Local Councils throughout the region, on average there are only one or two people available for each community centre. As some of our own volunteers could also be affected by the disaster, it means that Civil Defence advises everyone to be prepared to survive on their own for at least three days during a disaster. Disasters can strike at any time and often without warning, so know what to do before you have to do it.

Other sources of information

• Look inside the back cover of your Telephone Book. Here you will find some useful information about what to put in a survival kit, and what to do in the event of an emergency.
• Contact your local Council Emergency Management or Civil Defence Office
• Visit the national Civil Defence website on How to Get Ready for information for all New Zealanders on how to be prepared.