Survival kits a ‘recipe for disaster’

It could be the pack that saves your life, which is why authorities are warning Kiwis to be wary of premade emergency survival kits after our consumer watchdog found some lacking.

Consumer NZ released a report yesterday saying some pre-made survival kits on the market, which it tested, were more of a ‘‘recipe for disaster’’ than life-savers.

The kit prepared by the St John Ambulance service was rated the worst, in part because it does not include a first-aid kit.

Consumer NZ tested and rated seven pre-made survival kits on how comprehensive their components were, the quality of items inside, and their value.

It found five of the kits did not have basic hygiene items, such as hand sanitiser or tissues, and four had inadequate torches or radios.

About 32,000 Grab & Go emergency kits have been bought in this country, according to Civil Defence. About 60 per cent were bought in the Wellington region.

The Grab & Go kits, which are cheaper than others on the market, were created when it was found high prices were stopping people from buying a prepared emergency ‘‘grab-bag’’ kit.

People needed to personalise their emergency kits, or build one from scratch, Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (Wremo) Wellington regional officer Bruce Pepperell said.

Simply buying a pre-made kit and putting it away until a disaster hit was not enough, he said.

It was quite clear in the instructions that people needed to add things like comfortable shoes and ‘‘other bits and pieces’’, Pepperell said.

Consumer NZ chief executive Sue Chetwin said some of the kits the watchdog examined were worth buying, but Kiwis were generally better off making their own.

The organisation was able to put together a ‘‘grab bag’’ with three days’ worth of rations and other key items for $150, which Chetwin said was cheaper than many of the pre-made kits.

Many households would be able to put together their own kits for even less than that amount as most households already had items like a spare backpack or sleeping bags, she said.

Chetwin also singled out St John for having the ‘‘worst’’ kit.

‘‘Punters who shell out $200 for this disappointing grab bag will discover it lacks basic items such as a first-aid kit, food rations, drink bottle or rain poncho.’’

St John’s wind-up torch/radio also performed poorly in testing, because it had a ‘‘fiddly little dial’’ with unreadable markings that was difficult to tune and played for only four minutes after a minute of winding. Its built-in light was also significantly dimmer than regular battery-powered torches.

St John assistant director of clinical operations Dan Ohs said its grab bag was designed to work alongside a separately-sold St John first-aid kit.

There was also a drink bottle, which folded up, included in the bag.

St John valued feedback on its products and would take what Consumer had said on board when re-evaluating its grab bag, Ohs said. It would also see how its bag compared with other products on the market.

This comes after Wremo warned Wellingtonians they had to stop viewing Civil Defence centres as ‘‘war bunkers’’.

In announcing an overhaul of the city’s 120 centres months before the November 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, Wremo said it would not be refreshing survival supplies at the centres and urged Wellingtonians to get into the mindset of fending for themselves instead.