Scott Haskins on Hurricane Earl & Others To Follow

Scott Haskins, just back from Virginia has joined us to give us the lastest on Hurricane Earl and the forcasted lineup of hurricanes to follow.  Take it away Scott…  Laura

The Hurricane Pipeline Is Loaded

 

Both CNN and The Weather Channel are reporting that the line up of hurricanes and tropical storms extend over the entire Atlantic to Africa. Everyone’s still guessing how powerful they’ll end up being and where they’ll make landfall but the one thing they all agree on is that the next couple of months are going to be dicey.

The apex or most active date of hurricane season is marked as September 10^th but the season continues through the beginning of Nov.

Prognosticators have been predicting an active destructive 2010 season right from the beginning. In fact, at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, I heard some of these experts first hand and discussed the season and precautions we should take with Hurricane Bob, the well known Internet Radio Expert. (http://freehurricaneinfo.org/hurricane/water-damage-mold/hurricane-crystal-ball-gazers-see-trouble) But up till now there has been no activity beyond the tropical storms that have been dealt with in stride. Yet, interestingly enough, none of the experts have been willing to recant their predictions even though half the season is past.

Well, don’t sit back and breath easy yet… I just left Virginia Beach, VA where I was visiting Tom Antion, the legendary Internet Marketer… just in time to avoid the packing and evacuation warning for the arrival of Hurricane Earl, then Fiona on it’s heals. And, as you may know, there are two more lined up behind Fiona: Gustav and others to be yet named.

I called Tom this morning and they are packed, evacuated and 3 hours inland. I asked what he packed up: family history, dogs and electronic copies of business and important info. He didn’t have a Ready in 10 Grab n’ Go kit… but fortunately, this time, had time to pack and get out of town.

Packing and evacuating is a harrowing unsettling experience that belies the innate wiring we have to protect our stuff. Of course you can’t take it all with you. So some priorities must be understood ahead of time. Preparation ahead of time means all the difference in the world. Interesting enough, preparing ahead of time for a disaster like a hurricane also prepares you for home fires, flooding etc.

Treasured Photos and Documents:

Storms, Water Damage, Mold and Copy work

At the National Genealogical Society’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City, UT, I terrorized the expo of aged family curators and archivists when I flashed in front of visitors to my booth a scrapbook/photo album that had been badly ruined by water and had grown an ugly crop of mold. The morning before the conference started, a distraught lady had given me two of these books unwilling to deal with the mess. Inside are treasured family photos including those of grandparents now gone, documents and certificates of graduations and church ceremonies, letters from young children and lots of cute children growing up. Can you image just throwing out something like this!?

There is help available to salvage these situations and this type of damage is totally avoidable! This disaster occurred in a cardboard box, on the front driveway of their house while they were moving between houses in the same town. You don’t necessarily need a hurricane or flood to have disaster. It can be a situation all of your own making.

So, here are some helpful, useful, cheap-to-do tips that will make get you prepared:

Ahead of the Storm

Make Copies

• Make copies of important documents and irreplaceable photos and send them to someone out of the area.
• The ink on good laser copies won’t run with water. Photocopy, photocopy, photocopy… but remember, your ink jet on your desk is NOT archival and the inks will run!
• Many photos kept on hard drives can be copied to another location. Scan docs.
• Make your Grab n Go kit!!! Follow Ready in 10’s advice!

For items at home or in the office:

• Find a place to store items on high ground (top shelf of a closet)
• Put memories in clean plastic tubs. Get your photos, books, letters out of cardboard boxes. If cardboard boxes get wet, they stain everything.
• If you stash boxes of stuff in the attic in an emergency situation, don’t leave them there long term.. . The heat of attics won’t be good for original old photos and papers.
• An inventory and appraisals will be very important to have. Go to www.personalpropertyappraisal.com
• Shake proof your house and office to minimize the flying around of objects and breakage. Museum Wax is an excellent product. See http://freehurricaneinfo.org/productssupplies/

Keep this in mind after a storm hits

Knowing what to do after a disaster has struck may allow you to save your most personal and valued possessions. If it’s valuable in any way, don’t throw it out just because it’s stained, moldy, wet or torn. There may be a way to get help.

Talk to Someone Before You Throw Your Damaged Stuff Away

Have you had books ruined by mold or photos that have stuck together in a pile? Perhaps you have had frames bashed, a painting that was torn or items that were smoke damaged? I visited recently with a woman who suffered a total loss because of the toxic smoke from a fire over six months ago. She was still an emotional basket case because of the unsettled situation with possessions she loved. With some proper instruction and help, it doesn’t have to be like that.

Stay hopeful and find help. Much can be done to recoup lost items of value, even if it’s a long time after the fact.” If you need help interacting with your insurance company, go to http://insurancepersonalpropertyassessments.com/ for more information, examples and referrals for help.

For a copy of “How To Save Your Stuff From A Disaster” click now, on http://www.freehurricaneinfo.org/productssupplies/

Here are some sources for more information:

www.saveyourstuff.com

www.faclappraisals.com

Facebook pages with info: “SaveYourStuff”, “Preserving Family History”, “Fine Art Conservation”, “Fine Art Insurance Help”, “Free Hurricane Info”

Are Violent Storms and Flooding in Tennessee Giving YOU A Heads Up? 3 Important Tips.

This week we’ve asked Scott M. Haskins, author of How To Save Your Stuff From A Disaster (www.saveyourstuff.com), to be our Guest Blogger.  He’s got some tremendous insight and background on document preservation before and after disasters.  …LG

Horrible floods in Tennessee and Mississippi have been in the news for several weeks now. Water levels crested 10 feet over what is considered flood level! Thousands were evacuated and hundreds of others were rescued from their homes — some plucked from rooftops. The area that seems to have gotten the most press has been Nashville.

This last week, while I was in Milwaukee speaking at a national meeting for art conservation, I got a phone call from a Nashville frame and photo shop. While they had taken positive action to deal with the overwhelming mess, we had a very productive discussion about mold and reprocessing photos at a local professional photo lab.

What you may not have heard, is that not only was flooding a problem, but several areas also had to deal with tornadoes.  I can’t imagine the added mess of a tornado in the middle of a flood. It must have seemed like the end of the world for some.

Tennessee state’s Army National Guard was called in to help, and dozens of vehicles and personnel were put to work rescuing stranded residents. Nashville Mayor Karl Dean reported more than 600 water rescues in the city alone. One building in east Nashville was caught on video floating down Interstate 24 and passing stranded vehicles. Just take a look at this video! 

Now that the water is subsiding, the clean up is at hand. It will be at least several days until the most evident damage can be assessed and many weeks or month will be required to know the real depth of the problems created.

What do the woes of these folks suggest to you? Can the message, “Be Prepared” be said any clearer? So, what can you do?

1. This photo shows a man evacuating but able to save his stuff. If his papers, books, scrapbooks, photo albums etc had been in cardboard boxes, they would have been ruined and gone. Put your important stuff in plastic bins.
2. Keep your storage boxes of important items off the floor.
3. Keep a copy of important papers in another location (city) or consider online storage services. If everything is lost in a flood, fire or wind, you will have back up. This is could be super valuable to a small business.

For more tips, free downloads and a copy of How To Save Your Stuff From A Disaster, got to www.saveyourstuff.com.  And for more information about Scott, go to our media page.