NZ Herald editorial: Storm warnings are well worth taking seriously as Gita heads our way

New Zealanders are prepared for extreme weather today — or at least they ought to be. For a week our weather services have been tracking a tropical cyclone that hit Samoa and Tonga and is coming this way.

Gita is going to bring gale force winds and torrential rain to parts of the country. Its epicentre was on course to hit the lower North Island and most of the South Island but the rest of the country will feel its lash too.

The north should be well prepared. For the past few days we have been sweltering in the tropical air flowing our way ahead of the cyclone and living under heavy, muggy cloud that is building to a storm.

So are we prepared? Probably not, in the vast majority of households. Sure, the sun umbrella is furled, the deck furniture stowed, nothing left lying around that might be hurled through a window. The Ministry of Civil Defence suggests we should be prepared for the possibility of power cuts, loss of the water supply and road closures. It even suggest we have a bag packed in case the house has to be evacuated.

It is not predicting any of these things, or course. Precautions are not predictions, a distinction all should remember. Some of us are inclined to scoff at weather warnings, since the weather often turns out to be less fearsome than the warnings. But there were probably a few scoffers in Edgecumbe last February before the flood. Some might have been among those in Whanganui who later spent the night in a local hall, and among those camping in the Hunuas.

February finds New Zealand with its guard down. The holidays are over, the height of summer has just passed but the weather is still warm, as is the sea, and we are going to be swimming, boating, fishing, barbecuing and basking in the sun for a good many more weeks yet. So do not bother us about a passing storm. If that has been the prevailing attitude, this summer should be challenging it.

It has been an extraordinary summer so far, November and December were unusually warm thanks to a tropical current in the Tasman Sea and those months were so dry many parts of the country were facing a drought. But since New Year there has been plenty of rain as well as sunshine, and some of the deluges have been heavy and unusually sustained. The extreme weather begins to bear out the predictions for a warming climate.

All the more reason, then, to start taking storm warnings more seriously. Why not pack a bag with the items you would want if you have to evacuate suddenly? Think about not only a change of clothes and personal necessities. Think about documents you might need for identification and maybe have irreplaceable records and things of sentimental value in another bag you could take with you.

Think about being in your house with no electricity supply and maybe the road is closed. Do you have torches, batteries, candles? Is there enough bottled gas for the barbecue? Do you have some big containers of water? You almost certainly will not need them but there is no harm in being prepared.