Many sad stories are coming out of this week's storm in the northeastern United States. Homes were lost and damage is obviously in the billions of dollars. On a personal note, many families lost family photographs, momentos, and even genealogy records.
One sad picture is available at http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/121103122731-04-sandy-recovery-1103-horizontal-gallery.jpg where the description says, "Members of the Traina family on Friday sort through photographs and other personal items from their Staten Island home that was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy."
People who live in hurricane-prone areas and tornado-prone areas often have evacuation plans that include saving lives, followed by saving items of importance to the family. However, those in the northeastern U.S. and elsewhere are not used to making such plans.
Here is a question: do you and your family have a plan for saving items of importance in case of a disaster?
There are hundreds of ways to save such things. The difficulty is in defining a plan that works for you and your family. Of course, you want to save the originals, if possible. However, in the case of family photographs and documents, keeping an off-site digital copy is a good idea. Superstorm Sandy proved that the off-site copy should not be located a few miles away. Instead, off-site copies should be stored hundreds or even thousands of miles away, out of harm's way.
My thanks to W David Samuelsen for telling me about the photograph.
