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Plans needed for storing, protecting special documents

It’s a New Year and you have just got done rotating the stock in your 72-hour emergency kit. You paid attention to detail and made sure that the kit has all the food, water, personal items and medicines your household will need in case of an evacuation. But what about your important documents?

The Ada City-County Emergency Management office recommends the following documents should be included in an emergency kit that can be preserved and protected during an emergency:

Will
Insurance policies
Vehicle titles
Contracts
Deeds
Stocks
Bonds
Passports
Social Security cards
Immunization records
Other critical medical records
Bank account(s) information
Credit card(s) information

Many people choose to store these items in a safe deposit box outside their home. This is a very secure choice and will protect these critical documents if a disastrous event occurs to the home. But what if the disastrous event is community wide? What if the event destroys the building that houses the safe deposit box? It is best to have a backup, and one way is to keep electronic copies of all your records.

While electronic versions of critical documents may not be the perfect answer, they are a relatively inexpensive way to manage documents in a compact form that will easily fit in your 72-hour kit. The question that remains is do you use a DVD or thumb drive to store the information? The answer is use both, but store them in different locations.

DVD storage
If you have a recordable DVD drive in your computer you can back up electronic copies to a disc. Some of the scanned images of documents might be fairly large, but a DVD can store 4.3 GB or more, depending on the type you use. Store the DVD(s) in a hard plastic case away from heat. The DVD(s) should be sent to a friend or relative out of state as an out-of-area backup.

Thumb drive storage
Keep a copy of your records with you on a thumb drive. Make sure it is in a safe location in your 72-hour kit where it won’t get crushed if your kit gets jostled around during a quick evacuation. Your kit should be stored in a temperature-controlled environment so there won’t be heat issues for the drive.

Securing the information
There are a variety of software programs available that allow you to password-protect and encrypted files. You can individually lock specific files or place a single password on the thumb drive or DVD for access to all the documents. It is highly recommended that you take this extra security step.

Finally, remember the advice of Gen. George Patton: “A good plan implemented today is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow."

The latest Ada City-County Emergency Management bulletin is available as a pdf document on the Web.