When an earthquake, a tsunami warning, or a flood hits, you will not have time to stand in your hallway deciding what matters. That's the entire point of a "grab and go" bag — a small, pre-packed bag by your exit door with roughly 72 hours of essentials, ready before you ever need it. New Zealand's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is direct about this: figure it out now, while you're calm, not later, while you're not.
The Easy-to-Forget Essentials
NEMA's own list covers the obvious ground — sturdy walking shoes, warm clothes, a raincoat and hat, water and snack food, any regular medications, a first aid kit, and a torch with a radio (battery, solar, or wind-up) for when the power's out. But a few genuinely useful items slip people's minds every time:
- Hand sanitiser — water for washing may be the first thing to disappear.
- A portable phone charger — charged and kept separately from your phone, not relying on your phone's own battery.
- Copies of important documents and photo ID — printed if you can, or at minimum scanned and saved somewhere you can access without your original phone.
- Cash — small notes and coins, since power cuts take EFTPOS and ATMs down with them.
The "Nice to Haves" That Actually Matter
Once the essentials are sorted, a short list of extras makes a real difference to how bearable the next few days actually are, without adding much weight to the bag:
- A pack of cards, a book, or something else to pass the time
- Glow sticks — safer than candles, more reliable than a phone flashlight running down a battery
- A small shovel and a hi-vis vest
- A multi-tool
- Waste disposal bags
- A local map, marked with useful destinations and emergency contacts, in case digital maps aren't an option
One item worth specifically calling out: a flash drive with photos of every room in your home and its contents. It sounds like an odd thing to grab in a crisis, but it makes insurance claims dramatically faster and less stressful if the worst happens to your house while you're out of it.
The One Thing Civil Defence Says Skip
Here's a genuinely useful, slightly counterintuitive piece of official advice: don't pack matches or candles in your grab bag. In windy conditions — exactly the kind you might be evacuating because of — they can tip over and start a fire of their own. A torch with spare batteries does the same job of "light in the dark" without that risk.
What Not to Bother Packing
Unless you own something genuinely lightweight, leave the sleeping bag or blanket out of your grab bag entirely. Emergency evacuation centres — community hubs and the like — are generally stocked with blankets already, and a bulky bedroll is exactly the kind of thing that slows you down if you end up walking any real distance. Weight is the enemy of a bag you actually want to grab quickly.
Write the Boring List Too
Alongside the physical bag, it's worth writing yourself a short checklist of evacuation actions — turning off utilities, locking doors, whatever applies to your household — and keeping it somewhere you'll actually see it. Under pressure, even simple, familiar steps are easy to forget. A five-minute list written now saves you from trying to remember it while stressed.
If You're Responsible for Others
The same three-day thinking scales up wherever people gather. NEMA recommends employers hold enough supplies for everyone on-site — including visitors — for three days, and encourages staff to keep their own grab bag at work in case they need to walk home. If a serious injury is a real possibility for your household, it's worth having blankets, a stretcher, and a fuller first aid kit on hand until emergency services can reach you. And NEMA is blunt on one more point: don't forget pets and livestock in your planning. Failing to plan for animals puts lives at risk — including the people who go back for them.
Pack It Once. Check It Often.
A grab bag isn't a project you finish and forget. Batteries go flat, kids outgrow their clothes, medications change, and documents expire. Put a reminder in your calendar to open the bag every six months and refresh anything that's gone stale — the same habit as checking your smoke alarm batteries.
Come build the kind of preparedness that actually holds up.
Register Your InterestSourced from New Zealand's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), as reported by RNZ, New Zealand's statutory civil defence lifeline broadcaster. General guidance only — check getready.govt.nz for region-specific advice.