Comments on: 5 Ways To Be Prepared for Costly Natural Disasters

By: Allyson

Allyson — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:35:34 +0000

There is a big difference between evacuating and being stuck in your home with no power for a week at a time. Its important to know which one you are more likely to face and prepare accordingly.

A couple of missed “esentials” for the go-bag: toilet paper (people often don’t think about it but many shelters do not provide this), hand sanatizer, nail clipers, and a toothbrush.

By: Katie

Katie — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:53:28 +0000

Lots of good tech options now for saving your valuable info and photos if you don’t want to use a safe deposit box. An external drive will protect you against hard drive failure but not against disasters.

For free options, you can save copies and scans of important stuff (photos, home inventory, important documents etc.) to Dropbox, and/or email it to yourself in Gmail (I do this when travelling…scan of my passport in my email).

You can also use a remote backup service like Mozy or Backblaze (I’ve used both & prefer the latter)…they back up everything on your computer to a remote server for around $5 per month so if your whole city goes up in flames your digital stuff is still safe.

You can also have all your pre-digital photos and movies digitized (I’m doing this now with ScanDigital) and back them up too so you don’t lose your precious old family photos in a disaster.

By: Chiot's Run

Chiot's Run — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:18:24 +0000

Instead of a safety deposit box a friend and I each bought fire safes and we exchanged personal information. We keep copies of our home inventory and other docuemtns in there along with a master list of important information: bank accounts, retirement accounts, etc along with phone numbers to each of these places. That way if something happens to either of us we someone has the information. This would also come in handy if either of us is on vacation and our wallet is stolen. One call to my friend and I have all the infmormation I need to close all of my accounts.

We also keep several large gas cans filled with gas. We keep a date on them and swap them out every so often to keep the gas fresh. A couple years ago the electric went off here for a week or so and none of the gas stations could offer gas, the closest station was 30 miles away. Since we had several cans of gas we could keep the generator running without making any trips out for gas.

By: angel

angel — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:49:17 +0000

I would say not “essential medications or prescriptions” but essential medications AND prescriptions. I’m a physician and served in an evacuee clinic in the Houston area after Katrina and learned 1st hand the value of having a COPY of your prescription. You cannot necessarily count on being able to get back home OR back to your doctor for a long time if ever. If you have serious medical problems or are pregnant a copy of your medical record would also be a very good idea. Your doctor’s copy may also be destroyed by the disaster and or unavailable for extended periods of time. If you need to seek care somewhere during your evacuation a copy of essential parts of your record can be invaluable to you and the physician who doesn’t know you.

By: Weekly Round-Up: Getting into the New Routine — Almost Frugal- a frugal blog

Weekly Round-Up: Getting into the New Routine — Almost Frugal- a frugal blog — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:18:51 +0000

[...] 5 Ways To Be Prepared for Costly Natural Disasters @ Squawkfox [...]

By: SkimbleCat

SkimbleCat — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:05:57 +0000

Something to add to your emergency kit: if you have pets make sure you create a kit for them too! Food, water, medicine, spare leash/collar, copies of latest vaccination records, etc.

Also, if you are evacuated most human temporary shelters won’t allow you to bring your pets. So have someone you can leave your pet with, or look for a group like Noah’s Wish (http://noahswish.org). I was volunteering with Noah’s Wish in Lillooet for a week this summer – we come in and set up an animal shelter where people can bring their pets during disasters. We look after the animals until the people can return to their homes.

By: This and That: Bank of Canada Interest Rate Decision and more… | Canadian Capitalist

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:50:00 +0000

[...] With wildfires raging in British Columbia this summer, Squawk Fox had been ready to leave at a moment’s notice. She taps into her experience to write about the 5 ways to be prepared for natural disasters. [...]

By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:09:47 +0000

We live in a motor home full-time and travel throughout the U.S. for our business. Last spring we were at an RV park in Moab, Utah and someone had thoughtlessly tossed a lit cigarette into the surrounding woods. This caused a huge fire and the RV park was evacuated. I was so grateful that I use a laptop and was able to quickly shut it down and put it into its case and take it with me. This laptop has our complete business records on it; nowadays I also have a small external drive that has all my laptop back-ups on it, just in case.

Kerry, love your great ideas!

Rachel

By: How to be prepared for forest fires | British Columbia Canada Blog

How to be prepared for forest fires | British Columbia Canada Blog — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:03:23 +0000

[...] 1. 5 Waye to prepare for Forest fires [...]

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:59:59 +0000

Thanks for the mention! I’d second the comment about keeping some cash around the house — it’s great for an emergency or can be tapped if you run out of cash in your wallet and don’t have the time to drive to a bank machine.