Prize Winner Ready for Anything

Annette Hutchins is leaving nothing to chance. She’s always been somewhat emergency prepared, but since Cyclone Gabrielle she’s taken that up a notch or two.

Her quest has just been helped a bit more as a national NEMA winning ShakeOut participant and she will be adding that to her kit. “I was absolutely rapt to win that.”

Her own home survived Gabrielle but was hit harder during the Auckland Anniversary storm which saw water sneak in under the doors.

Annette remembers well the December 2007 magnitude 6.7 earthquake, and that night ended up manning the phones for her employer CSL calming the many people who called.

“I put together an emergency kit after that but quickly realised it was too heavy to move,” she says.

So, she headed out to buy a metal garden trolley and a few “old lady shopping trollies”. One for her mum to fill with her necessities, the other for herself and then one for the dehydrated food. She’s also bought a tent, sleeping mats, solar chargers, a generator, water purification tablets and containers, and even set up a system so she can catch and filter rainwater from the roof.

She and her mum can easily last five days or more without outside help. “I live with my mum so knew I had to make sure she was safe,” says Annette. “I know we will now be fine if we need to react.”

Annette happily shares her knowledge with mates. “Some of them laugh at me but even mum said while she thought I was a bit silly at first, now with all the natural disasters, she knows at least we will be ok.”

This holiday period Annette plans to go through their emergency kit to check it is all good to go.