Being prepared at every age

We should all know how important it is to be ready for a Civil Defence emergency - but do our young people?

Sophie Fisher certainly does. The 17-year-old Taupo-nui-a-Tia College student is one of a growing number of young people ready to get through, with a grab-and-go emergency bag sorted, containers of water and plenty of canned food at home.

"We are getting to that stage where we're becoming independent and we're not always going to have our parents with us so we need to know what to do," she said.

She said it was important to be prepared in the Taupo District because of the many potential hazards it faced.

"Taupo gets such crazy weather, and we're surrounded by so many natural features that could cause problems," she said.

Emergency manager Ian Connon said a national campaign to reach young people and educate them about the importance of Civil Defence was recently launched.

"It's really about teaching the youth of today to be aware of the need to be prepared," he said. "We're asking them to look at what's happened recently in New Zealand with flooding, earthquakes and weather events, and consider that it could easily happen to them."

Ian said a lot of young people tended to think of emergency events as things that happened to other people.

"If our young people are prepared, it encourages their families to be prepared, and that helps everyone," he said.

Find out more information on the Civil Defence area of our website.