An article in the Corsicana (Texas) Daily Sun caught my eye. It seems that Gary Richards, who grew up in Corsicana but has lived in Louisiana for about 10 years, had a sad experience when he had to evacuate his house near Lake Ponchartrain, where the levee system failed during Hurricane Katrina.
Richards borrowed a friend’s car and had to leave his computers and many valuable genealogical items behind, hoping that the house would withstand storms as in the past. He headed to his parents' home in Corsicana and stayed there for some time. When he returned to his house in October, hoping for the best, there had been eight and one-half feet of water on his street and five feet of water in the house itself. Every stick of furniture had been destroyed, along with his 3,000 books.
Richards' computers were ruined although some of his genealogy records on paper were salvageable.
You can read the full story at http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/news/local_story_164093825.html.
This sad story should be a lesson for the rest of us. Do you have backups of your paper as well as your computer files? Do you have copies saved off-site in a safe place? After all, if disaster strikes, the backups you keep in your house will be destroyed at the same time your computer or other paper records are destroyed. The safest backup is one that is stored some distance away.
For a long time I kept backups from my home computer in a desk drawer at the office and backups of the office computer in a drawer at home. Looking back, I now think that was foolish. A widespread disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina, could easily destroy both.
I now keep backups of my most critical files off-site through a service that automatically makes backups every few hours across the Internet. Today my backups are stored about 2,500 miles away.
Perhaps now is the time to re-think your backup process, before disaster strikes. You might want to consider what happened to Gary Richards’ computer and his 3,000 books. Then make your plans accordingly.
