A week and a half ago, when every­one on the East coast was prepar­ing for Hur­ri­cane Sandy, most of us were think­ing about water, flash­lights, sump pump backup power, and gaso­line. How many peo­ple took the time to make sure that they had their vital per­sonal records accounted for and safe­guarded in the event that the storm did more than take down some branches in the back­yard? Those of us who were lucky enough to weather the storm with­out sus­tain­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age can look at those who lost every­thing and use the jolt of “That could have been me…” to prompt us to take mea­sures to pro­tect one of our most impor­tant per­sonal assets.

Per­sonal vital records include (but are not lim­ited to) the following:

• Birth/marriage/death cer­tifi­cates, divorce decrees;
• Adop­tion records;
• Pass­ports, driver’s licenses, health insur­ance cards, work IDs, other photo IDs;
• Cur­rent pho­tographs of house­hold members;
• Con­tracts, leases, and mortgages;
• Deeds for real prop­erty and titles for your cars;
• Insur­ance poli­cies (homeowner’s, auto, health, den­tal, life, etc.);
• Records and access infor­ma­tion for all finan­cial accounts (bank, credit card, invest­ment, etc.)
• Records of legal proceedings;
• Wills and estate plans;
• Immu­niza­tion and med­ical his­tory records;
• Pre­scrip­tions (med­ical, vision, etc.);
• Tax returns and sup­port­ing documentation;
• Emer­gency infor­ma­tion (e.g., con­tact infor­ma­tion for fam­ily, friends, doc­tors, insur­ance com­pa­nies, and con­trac­tors and util­ity companies);
• House­hold inven­tory (pro­vides replace­ment value evi­dence for insur­ance purposes);
• Social Secu­rity cards and records;
• Edu­ca­tional records (tran­scripts, diplo­mas, etc.);
• Employ­ment records (resume, employ­ment his­tory, ref­er­ence con­tact infor­ma­tion, salary history);
• Mil­i­tary ser­vice records;
• Records for your pet(s); and last, but not least,
• Unique records that have sen­ti­men­tal value (fam­ily pho­tographs, video, keep­sakes, etc.).

Many of these records can be replaced if you lose them, although that will take a lot more time and effort (and money!) than pro­tect­ing the ones you already have. Some of your records can’t be replaced. These are records that you’ll sur­vive with­out, but they’re the ones that you’ll truly regret los­ing (e.g., the video of your baby’s first steps, or let­ters from a deceased loved one).

You should keep your vital records together (in one con­tainer if pos­si­ble) so that you can take them with you if you need to evac­u­ate and you should update them reg­u­larly. These records may be elec­tronic or they may be phys­i­cal (paper, pho­tographs, video­tapes, etc.) Your plan for main­tain­ing them should take their for­mat into con­sid­er­a­tion. You may want to keep copies of cer­tain records in a safe deposit box or with a trusted friend or rel­a­tive (who doesn’t live next door, in case they suf­fer from the same dis­as­ter!) This is also a good option for cases where you don’t have a chance to get the records before the dis­as­ter strikes. A fire-proof safe in your home is another good stor­age option. Another option, if you have cho­sen to dig­i­tize records as a backup, is to use online stor­age, which may be a ser­vice offered through the com­pany that pro­vides your home inter­net con­nec­tion (or you can choose from any of a large num­ber of com­pa­nies that offer this as their pri­mary ser­vice). Just make sure key peo­ple (e.g., your spouse, chil­dren, your lawyer, or a trusted friend) have access to the records in the event that you are unable to do so. They will need to know the phys­i­cal loca­tion of the records (and know how to gain access to that loca­tion) or will need login infor­ma­tion for the server where the records are stored.

Iden­ti­fy­ing, locat­ing, and safe­guard­ing your vital records is not a quick and easy task, but it can save enor­mous amounts of time and money and is the best way to pre­vent impor­tant records from being destroyed in the event of a disaster.

Step 1: Review your records and iden­tify which ones are the most impor­tant to you and your fam­ily. This is a good time to destroy your obso­lete records.

Step 2: Put orig­i­nals together in a con­tainer you can take with you or in a home safe or a bank safe deposit box.

Step 3: Make copies (elec­tronic or pho­to­copies) of these records for active use and to serve as a back-up if the orig­i­nals are destroyed. Keep a copy with some­one you trust or keep an elec­tronic backup online.

Step 4: Make sure every­one who should know how to access these records knows how to do so. Like­wise, make sure that you keep the records as secure as pos­si­ble. This is per­sonal and con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion that you do not want just any­one to gain access to.

Tak­ing these steps to pro­tect your per­sonal records will not only help in the case of a dis­as­ter but will also sup­port your reg­u­lar house­hold oper­a­tions as it pro­vides an oppor­tu­nity to orga­nize your records and purge the obso­lete ones. Happy recordkeeping!