The Importance Of A Reliable Plan

25Apr2016

How To Back Up Your Parent’s Print Photos

Posted in Backing Up Your Photos, Earthquake, How To, Hurricanes, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes by Laura Greenwald

Updated 3/7/21

How To Back Up Your Parent’s Printed Photos

I don’t know about you, but the worst part about watching coverage of earthquakes — like the quakes in Ecuador and Japan — is the look on victim’s faces as they pick through the rubble of their homes, trying to find a photo of their wedding or of their children.

In today’s world, now that we have smartphones, taking photos has become a daily event. If one gets harmed or destroyed, we just print out another copy. Not true though for old family photos that are hanging on the wall, or worse, stuck like glue inside a yellowed photo album.

And where will you find most of those old photos? At your parent’s and grandparent’s house — where unfortunately one-of-a-kind can mean just that. One copy and that’s it! What a horrible thing it would be for them or for you to be left without the pictures you treasure the most, especially when keeping them safe and sound is so easy.

So give this post a quick read, grab the tools you need for the job and let’s get Mom and Dad’s photos and cameras squared away once and for all!

As you know, there are two types of photos. The first are photo prints – basically anything that is a physical photo, whether it’s in a frame, in an album or lurking in the back of a kitchen or desk drawer. In order to archive those photos, you’ll need to scan them and get them into a digital format so that they can be put on a computer or portable hard drive. That’s what we’ll be dealing with in this article. The second type of photo is a digital photo – which we help you back up and archive in another post.

One thing that makes print photos harder to archive than other keepsakes is the simple fact that we get so used to seeing our favorite photos hanging around the house, that we don’t always think to take them off the wall and scan them for safekeeping.

So your first task is to locate all of your parent’s physical photos. Don’t forget to look for all the albums, photos in drawers or files and those hanging in frames on the walls or sitting on the bookshelf. Then you’ll decide which of those photos you want to archive for safekeeping. After that, we’ll get them scanned.

If there are a lot of photos around the house, you’ll probably need some help dealing with all of your pictures. Why not declare one day “scanning day”. Invite a bunch of good friends over to help, and if you have as much fun as we think you will, next time have them bring over their own photos to scan. Do you have kids? That’s even better – they’ll have a great time helping.

1. Grab a pencil and paper

…and go around the house jotting down all the non-digital photos or photo collections you want to secure and their current location.

2. Gather all of the photos that you located.

Although all of your photos are important, some mean more to your parents than others.

Take a few moments to look at the photo albums, prints and framed photos and separate them into two different piles.

In the first pile, place photos that you want to copy and save in a digital format, for safekeeping.

In the second pile, place photos that you:
- Already have in digital format and could easily recopy if the one you’re holding was harmed or destroyed.
- Have numerous other copies of the photo in other locations. Check to make sure that this is actually true, before you decide not to scan them.
- Simply don’t care enough about to keep it disaster safe.

You can go ahead and put the photos in the second pile back where you found them.

3. Scan Away!

Take the photos in the first pile, scan each one and download it to your computer, placing them in a brand new folder. When you’re finished, make one copy of that complete folder. Place the original folder in with the other digital photos on your computer. Then place the copy of the folder into the backup folder you created earlier.

If you already have digital photos on your computer, save these scanned photos to a new folder within your photos folder. For example, ScannedPrintPhotos, so you’ll know at a glance which photos are the ones you scanned.

4. Make Sure You Back Up ALL Your Photos To At Least Three Locations

Once you have finished scanning, copy that folder containing all of your photos — the digital ones and the ones you just scanned and save it with a different name, like Photo Archive Backup, with today’s date. Place a copy of your backup folder in at least three different locations. Here are a few suggestions of safe places to store them:

•On a flash drive or portable hard drive, and take them with you during evacuation on a key ring or in your plastic evacuation bin.

•On a flash drive or portable hard drive, in a safe deposit box or water/fireproof safe in your own city.

•On a flash drive or portable hard drive, in a safe deposit box, water/fireproof safe, or with relatives in the city where you’ll be evacuating.

•In a password-protected online file repository or on the file directory of your family’s personal web site. This way, you can retrieve them from any Internet-enabled computer.

•You can also save an extra copy of your photos on Flickr or another internet photo service. But this really shouldn’t be your long-term solution or only solution, since you have no control over these sites and could lose all of your data without any warning.

•If you really want to keep photos on a secure site that you can share with your family, try iMemories.com. Not only do they have great servers with outstanding redundant backup capability, but they can even put your photos on DVD for you, providing an extra layer of safety.

If you need more help scanning your photos — or if you have delicate or color challenged photos that need a bit more attention, here are a few tips.

How To Scan Your Photos

There are several great ways to scan your photos. Just to clarify, a scanner is different than a copy machine, because a scanner makes an exact digital copy of a photo. It’s a world of difference from a photo copy, which is usually pretty bad. In many cases a scan of a photo is better than the original. And the nice thing about them is that once you scan a photo, you can save it onto your computer, share it with family and friends or use photo software to correct faded color, repair damage or otherwise restore old photographs.

Most printers available now are three or four in one printers, that scan as well as print. You can also scan your photos with a dedicated flatbed scanner (all it does is scan).

Or you can scan your photos with a portable wand scanner, as we mentioned earlier. Portable wand scanners, like the VuPoint Wand Scanner, have come a long way. They run on batteries or are rechargeable and save anything you scan onto an SD card. From there, you can download the scans/photos directly to your computer, via a USB cord, or you can pop the SD card out of the scanner and pop it into your computer to archive your scans.

The best part about having a portable wand scanner is that you can scan photos, documents, even things like marriage certificates or historical documents by swiping the scanner over it, instead of having to take all of those documents home and putting them, one at a time, through your scanner. It’s especially good, like we said, for scanning photos at relative’s homes. If they don’t want the photo leaving the house, just take the scanner over and scan the photos you want. Amazingly, if you’re dealing with a fragile photo, you can even scan it right in the frame. Or if you have delicate photos in a photo album – have you ever tried to peel photos out of an album without damaging them – you can simply open the book and sweep the scanner over the page. Then all you have to do is open the scanned page and crop the photos apart, saving each one as a separate photo. Photos archived, originals safeguarded!

One other scanner we wanted to mention is one that stands out among all the others in the marketplace, for color correction. It’s the Epson Perfection line of scanners, with Epson’s Easy Photo Fix software. There are several models on Amazon.com. Do you have any of those photos from the seventies and eighties that ended up a muddled brown-orange mess? All you have to do is use the Auto Fix setting on the scanner and then scan your seventies photos. The scanner corrects the color while it scans. Truly amazing!

If you don’t have access to a scanner, then have a relative or friend scan them for you. Scanning is by far the cheapest and most effective way of safeguarding your important photos. If you can’t get them scanned, go to a copy shop like Fed Ex-Kinko’s and have copies made of all your photos, using non-acid paper. This will ensure that they will last longer and will fade less as they age.

Now that you know what you’re doing, scan all the loose prints that you want to preserve. The higher the dpi the better the quality, so use 300 or 600 on your oldest, most treasured photos. Then save the scans to your computer to back them up.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Back It Up

I don’t know about you, but the most important keepsakes in our house are our old family photos, followed closely by our home movies and music. But grabbing piles of photo albums and all your picture frames off the walls is pretty hard to do when you’re running out the door! With Back It Up, you’ll learn quick, easy steps to back up your print/digital photos, home movies, music (including vinyl & cassettes) and save them in multiple, disaster proof locations. Paperback Or Instant Download

Keep Everything You Love Safe | The Book Inspired By The Blog
Keep Everything You Love Safe, is filled with quick, easy, 5 minute steps you can take right now, to get everything that’s important to you organized, safe, sound and accessible. Each section covers a different area, from backing up and fixing family photos, home movies and music, to vital documents, medical and financial information and even getting your digital life in order. Paperback Or Instant Download

Keep The Stuff You Love Safe

How To Save Your Treasured Voice Mail Messages

How To Save Your Home Movies And Videos

How To Archive Your Digital Photos

How To Archive Your Print Photos

How To Make A Home Inventory

How To Get Your Financial Life In Order

How To Preserve Your Family History

How To Back Up Your Facebook Friends List

Turn Your Smartphone Into A Mobile Command Center

How To Backup Your Music, MP3s And Vinyl Albums

How To Access Your Money No Matter Where You Are

14Dec2015

The Best Apps For Tornado Season

Posted in How To, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes by Laura Greenwald

Updated 3/8/21

When someone says “winter weather,” most people think of snow.

But in some areas of the country, particularly the South, winter can be an active time for severe storms and tornadoes. And as we see all the time — like the Alabama and Georgia tornadoes. They don’t even hit during “tornado season”.

In fact, on Dec. 23-24, 2014, 10 tornadoes hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, killing five people and injuring more than 50.

While the chance of tornadoes is significantly lower in the winter than the spring, it’s important to stay prepared for any contingency.

Smartphones and other portable devices have proven to be important tools during spring storm seasons, and they continue to do so all year long. There are plenty of apps available to help during storm season.

One of the most powerful and comprehensive is RadarScope, an app popular with meteorologists. RadarScope is available in a free version, which contains most of the apps features, and a Pro version, which costs $10 per year and provides added forecasting tools.

RadarScope provides a long list of radars, from the standard precipitation to wind velocity radar that can show damaging winds and even rotation that could indicate tornadoes. It includes the new dual polarization radars, new tools that can show possible tornadoes more accurately. With these tools, forecasters can see possible debris balls that could indicate a tornado is on the ground and causing damage.

While RadarScope has powerful tools for forecasters, it’s easy to navigate and can be used by anyone. It also includes weather alerts that will sound if a watch or warning is issued in a chosen area.

WeatherUnderground has another app that can help in a stormy situation. Called Storm, the app is similar to RadarScope, though it lacks some of the radars, such as the dual polarization tools. The Storm app is free, but includes ads. An ad-free subscription is available for $1.99 per year.

This app can show everything from a storm’s track to the lightning it’s producing. It not only has a current radar, it has a future one that can predict where a storm is headed and how intense it will be once it gets there. Storm also can send alerts for favorite locations to the smartphone or tablet whenever a watch or warning is issued for that area.

For those just needing a quick glance at the current conditions, the Wunderground app from Weather Underground can provide that. Some of the information provided includes current temperature, radar, barometric pressure and wind speed, as well as humidity, rain accumulation, visibility and even sunrise and sunset times. The app also provides a forecast and temperature graph for the next five days. Again, the app is free, but an ad-free version costs $1.99 per year.

Finally, check out the area’s local TV station apps, if available. Most television stations have their own news apps, and many have their own weather apps. Some are better than others, but the local apps often can provide everything from timely weather alerts to the ability to stream their live broadcast to see first-hand what’s happening with the weather.

While winter is a slower storm season that other times of the year, it’s by no means absent of severe weather. It’s important to stay vigilant when severe weather is expected. Smartphone apps provide the best weather tools available while on the go. They can help ensure safety during storm season — any time of year.

___________________________________________________________

Melissa L. Jones is a trained storm spotter, photographer and technology review columnist. Her column, “Tech Spotlight,” appears every Monday in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Ready In 10 | 10 Steps. 10 Days. Ready For Almost Anything.

This cutting-edge system is designed to help you get the information you need, keepsakes you treasure and people you love, through life’s little and not so little disasters. In one piece. So you can get back to living your normal life, as quickly and painlessly as possible. Paperback Or Instant Download

How To Organize Your Digital Life

How To Organize Your Digital Life gives a place to record all of your passwords, account information and even emergency instructions, along with secure ways to access them remotely, putting your social media life and your business life exactly where it belongs. At your fingertips. Paperback Or Instant Download

Keep The Stuff You Love Safe

How To Save Your Treasured Voice Mail Messages

How To Save Your Home Movies And Videos

How To Archive Your Digital Photos

How To Archive Your Print Photos

How To Make A Home Inventory

How To Get Your Financial Life In Order

How To Preserve Your Family History

How To Back Up Your Facebook Friends List

Turn Your Smartphone Into A Mobile Command Center

How To Backup Your Music, MP3s And Vinyl Albums

How To Access Your Money No Matter Where You Are

11Jun2014

Help Your Friends & Family Prepare for Hurricane & Tornado Season

Posted in How To, Hurricanes, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes by Laura Greenwald

Question.

If you could keep your friends and neighbors from losing the things they love most in the next hurricane or tornado, would you do it?

Well the good news is, now you can. And it only takes the click of a mouse.

Here’s how.

Now that hurricane season and tornado season are here, I started thinking about the news coverage of Hurricane Sandy.

There was this one woman that I’ll never forget. Her name was Phyllis.

She was talking to a reporter outside of what was left of her Staten Island home, when she saw a large, yellowed piece of paper lying across the yard. Phyllis grabbed it, clutched it to her chest and began sobbing. It was her mother’s wedding photo, the only copy she had, now mud-soaked and disintegrating in her hands.

The worst part is, the pain she felt over that destroyed photo was absolutely preventable.

We’ve been through more than a few disasters ourselves, including an earthquake and an airplane crashing into our neighborhood. In fact that’s the reason we wrote “Get Your Stuff Together”.

But the other day when I thought about Phyllis, I knew I had to do something more. Something else that will keep people from having to experience that kind of pain.

Not just one family at a time, but hundreds.

So here’s the plan. There’s something we can all do, right now, to prevent pain with just one click.

We just negotiated a special discount on “Get Your Stuff Together” for everyone who wants to buy 10 or more copies of the book. It doesn’t matter whether it’s for your church, your business, your Air Force base, your kid’s school, service organization or your Little League team.

Just let us know how many copies your group, company or organization wants, and we’ll get the books to you ASAP. Are you ready, because here comes the link you need to click to make it all happen.

Click here https://www.createspace.com/3823528 to order your copies directly from our publisher’s website. Just make sure you enter coupon code: BWXNWPZ7 to get your discount.

Or if you want us to order them for you, email us at webmaster1 at nokep.org, let us know how many copies you want, and we’ll take it from there.

So what do you think? Are you ready to help the families in your community stay safer this hurricane and tornado season?

All it takes is One Click.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together! We’ll talk later…

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More Amazing Things You Can Do In 5 Minutes Or Less

How To Set Up An ICE Contact On Your Smartphone

How To Download and Back Up Your Digital Photos

How To Have Your Medical History At Your Fingertips

How To Fill Out Your Kid’s Emergency Contact Card

Learn how to put an ICE Contact on every type of smartphone in just minutes with The ICE My Phone Kit! Paperback Edition $14.99 Buy now at Amazon.com Downloadable PDF Edition $5.00 Buy Now Read more about it
_________________________________________________

The Book Inspired By The Blog. The Backup Plan 3.0

The Backup Plan 3.0, is filled with quick, easy, 5 minute steps you can take right now, to get everything that’s important to you organized, safe, sound and accessible. Each section covers a different area, from backing up and fixing family photos, home movies and music, to vital documents, medical and financial information and even getting your digital life in order. This special Bonus Edition includes 7 downloadable Bonus Books. Paperback Edition $24.99 Buy now at Amazon.com Downloadable PDF Edition $8.00 Buy Now Read more about it

I don’t know about you, but the most important keepsakes in our house are our old family photos, followed closely by our home movies and music. The problem is, grabbing piles of photo albums and all of the picture frames off the walls is hard to do if you have to get out of the house quickly. With How To Back Up Your Photos, Videos and Music, you’ll learn quick, easy steps to back up your print/digital photos, home movies, cassettes, vinyl albums and archive them in multiple, disaster proof locations. $12.95 Buy now at Amazon.com Read more about it

Raise Money & Save Lives! Free Customized Editions of our books make a great fundraiser for your organization, company, or an extra stream of income for you.

Your Business Continuity Plan May Be Missing Something… Like your employees, for instance? If your city is struck by a tornado, earthquake or other disaster, it isn’t just your company that will be affected – so will your employees. That’s why you need to make sure they’re as prepared for an emergency as YOU are. Don’t worry! We’ve got you covered. Read More About It

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10Jun2014

How To Create A Family Evacuation Plan

Posted in Earthquake, How To, Hurricanes, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes, Travel Safety by Laura Greenwald

Updated 3/23/2021

If you and your family had to evacuate your home because of a tornado, an earthquake or wildfire, where would you go?

There’s a lot to consider. “Location A is close enough to home to check on the house if we had to, but what if the entire city is affected? But if we went to Location B, how would I ever get to work?”

Is your head hurting yet?

Not to worry. A – That’s exactly why we want you to go through this exercise now and not when a firefighter is knocking at the door. And B – That’s also why we suggest that you choose three locations and opt for the one that fits your needs if an emergency ever rears its ugly head.

A great #EvacuationPlan has two objectives:

1) To figure out the best location for your evacuation

2) To help you gather your family and get you safely to your location

First we’ll walk you through choosing your locations and sketching out a plan. Once the plans are set, put the details on your family’s emergency wallet cards. If you want, you can also give a card to the person you chose to be your out-of-area contact. And if you don’t have emergency wallet cards, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered!

How To Choose The Perfect Locations

Location One: A location Near Your Home, that you can use if you cannot stay in your home, but the area around it is still safe and secure.

Location Two: A location Outside of Your Immediate Area, that you can use if you cannot stay in your area, but the cities around you are still safe and secure.

Location Three: A location Out of State, if your own state is uninhabitable.

With three locations you’ll be prepared no matter what the emergency. You’ll just go down your list, choose the location you need, and be on your way. You and the members of your immediate family will know where to gather and what to do, even if everyone is away from home in the middle of a busy day.

The Right Location

Before you try to zero in on a perfect location, come up with as many different locations as you can that you and your family would be able to use for evacuation.

As you consider each location, think about:

The needs of the people traveling with you
How you’ll get there (car, bus, plane)
Any pets that will be traveling with you

Does It Have What You Need?

Once you’re pretty certain you have the right places, consider whether this location has what you and your family would actually need.

For instance if would need to stay in that location for two or three weeks, would it be close enough to the stores or services your family might need, like pharmacies, clothing, banks and doctors?
Would you be able to get to work from that location, or are you able to work from home?
Does it have the furniture and supplies necessary for two or three weeks?

We Have A Winner! Make That Three Winners!

No location is perfect, so if you came up with one or two things your location would be lacking, be sure to note them on your Family Evacuation Plan, so that you can take care of it before you get there.

The Staging Area

Now that you’ve chosen your locations, choose two places for you and your family to gather during an emergency, so that you can travel to your evacuation location together. One place should be near your home or work and the other farther from your home in case your area is completely inaccessible.

Put the addresses and phone numbers of these two meeting places on your family’s emergency cards.

Appoint An Out Of Town Contact

It’s also a good idea to appoint an out of town contact to help you while your family deals with the aftermath of an emergency.

Even though you might not be able to call people right in your own area after an emergency, you can often call long distance. A distant friend can be a touch point for the entire family until communication is restored.

Once you choose an out of town relative or friend as a contact, check with them to make sure that they’re willing to help. If so, give them a copy of your emergency plan and wallet card, so they’ll be able to help, if the need ever arises.

Creating Your Plan

Grab a copy of our Family Evacuation Plan, or if you have our book Get Your Stuff Together, you’ll find a copy in the back of the book. Here are a few questions to answer before you draft your plan:

Who Is Evacuating With You?
Who Will Do What?
Temporary Housing
Transportation Plans/Travel Information
Pet Information
Out of State and Local Contacts
Contact Information For Everyone Who Will Be Evacuating With You As Well As Your Out of Town Contact.
- Their cell phone/school/office numbers
- Email addresses
- Twitter and Facebook account names.
- Any other information that can put you in immediate touch with them, even if one or two modes of communication are down.

Making Your Plan Easy To Access

Review the plans with your spouse and adult family members. Once they’re set, put that information on your family’s emergency wallet cards. If you don’t already have your own, click the link to download ours. It might be a good idea to give a card to the person you chose to be your out of area contact, too.

And while you’re at it, store a copy in your family’s cell phones as well, in case an emergency occurs while you’re away from home.

Print, scan or make three copies of the Evacuation Plan, and store it in at least three secure, damage-proof locations. That way if one or two of the locations are inaccessible, you’ll still be able to grab the information you need.

If your Plan is on paper, you can place it:

In your watertight Plastic Evacuation Bin. Only place the documents that you actually need in this bin. If you’ll also have access to copies of your vital documents in your safe deposit box, then don’t take anything with you that you would worry about if it were lost.
In a safe deposit box or water/fireproof safe in your own city.
With your emergency contacts or with relatives in the city where you’ll be evacuating.

If your Plan is on computer, you can place it:

On a password-protected flash drive or portable hard drive, and take them with you during evacuation on a key ring or in your evacuation bin.
On a password-protected online file repository or even the file directory of your family’s personal web site. This way if you need a copy of your information or forms quickly, you can retrieve them from any Internet-enabled computer.
Save a link to the Plan on you and your family’s smartphones, so that you can all instantly access and use the plan whenever you need it.

Anything Else To Add?

Is there any other information you need, to deal with a medical emergency while evacuated or away from home? If so, scan or make copies of that information and place it in the same folder as your completed medical history forms.

If you need help creating Medical History Forms for your family, take a look at our blog post.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Keep Everything You Love Safe | The Book Inspired By The Blog

Keep Everything You Love Safe, is filled with quick, easy, 5 minute steps you can take right now, to get everything that’s important to you organized, safe, sound and accessible. Each section covers a different area, from backing up and fixing family photos, home movies and music, to vital documents, medical and financial information and even getting your digital life in order. Paperback Or Instant Download

At Your Fingertips | Make Your Smartphone Even Smarter

What if I told you, there was something you have with you right now, that can give you the support, information & ability you need to keep everyone and everything you love safe and sound, PLUS the power to gather your family in seconds no matter where they are. What is it? It’s your smartphone! At Your Fingertips is an easy to read, easy to use guide that turns your smartphone into your very own life preserver. Paperback Or Instant Download

Keep The Stuff You Love Safe

How To Save Your Treasured Voice Mail Messages

How To Save Your Home Movies And Videos

How To Archive Your Digital Photos

How To Archive Your Print Photos

How To Make A Home Inventory

How To Get Your Financial Life In Order

How To Preserve Your Family History

How To Back Up Your Facebook Friends List

Turn Your Smartphone Into A Mobile Command Center

How To Backup Your Music, MP3s And Vinyl Albums

How To Access Your Money No Matter Where You Are

2Nov2012

How To Back Up Your Print Photos

Posted in Backing Up Your Photos, Earthquake, How To, Hurricanes, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes by Laura Greenwald

Updated 9/28/21

I don’t know about you, but the worst part about watching coverage of any hurricane or wildfire, is the look on people’s faces as they pick through the rubble of their homes, trying to find the things they love.

Even one photo of their wedding or of their children, can mean the difference between being with or without their cherished memories.

And with the way the world has been the last few years — from hurricanes to wildfires, tornadoes and oh yeah, COVID — it’s definitely time to make everything we love safe and sound.

Here are our top tips, tools & high tech toys that will get all your favorite photos scanned, stored and accessible quickly and easily.

Have you been through your family photo album lately?

How are your pictures doing?

Are they bright and colorful or faded and lifeless?

Have you taken the time to scan them or is the print you’re holding, the only one of its kind?

The one thing that makes photos harder to archive than other keepsakes, is that we’re so used to seeing them hanging around the house, that we forget to take them off the wall and scan them for safekeeping.

Before we get to saving you current pictures, how would you like to make sure all of your future photos are safe and protected before they even leave your camera?

Simple! The next time you buy a camera, make sure it’s Wi-Fi enabled, like one of my personal favorites, the Sony HX400V Compact Digital Camera. Every picture you snap goes right to your computer or to the Cloud automagically without you having to remember to do it manually. And it has a spectacular Optical Zoom to boot! And if you’re not in the market for a new camera, get a Wi-Fi memory card like the ez Share WiFi SD Card that turns most regular digital cameras into Wi-Fi.

Backing Up Your Photos

The good news is, there are so many different printers and scanners and flash drives and hard drives, you can see your favorite family photos any time and anywhere you want.

In this section, we’ll be dealing with prints – basically anything that is a physical photo, whether it’s in a frame, in an album or lurking in the back of a kitchen or desk drawer — and get them into a digital format.

If you have a lot of photos around the house, you’ll probably need some help dealing with all of your pictures. Why not declare one day “scanning day”. Invite a bunch of good friends over to help, and if you have as much fun as we think you will, next time have them bring over their own photos to scan. Don’t forget to recruit your kids. They’ll have a great time helping.

1. Oh Photos? Where Are You?

First, locate and gather all of your physical photos.

Don’t forget to look for all your albums, photos in drawers or files, framed and hanging on the walls or sitting on your bookshelf.

2. Quick Start

Although all of your pictures are important, some mean more to you than others.

Before you start sorting all your pictures, find the ten or twelve pictures you love the most and back them up first, using the “How To Scan Your Photos” directions below.

Not only will your favorite shots be safe and sound, but you’ll already know what you’re doing when you tackle the rest of them!

3. Sorting All Your Photos

Separate your photos into two different piles.

In Pile 1, place photos that you want to copy and save in a digital format, for safekeeping.

In Pile 2, place photos that you:

Already have in digital format and could easily recopy if the one you’re holding was harmed or destroyed.
Have numerous copies of in other locations. Check to make sure that this is actually true, before you decide not to scan them.
Simply don’t care enough about to keep it disaster safe.

The next time you have a second, put the photos in the second pile back where you found them.

4. Scan Away!

Using our scanning tips below, scan all of the photos in Pile 1 and save them to your computer.

If you already have digital photos on your computer, save the new scans to a new folder within your photos folder.

For example, ScannedPrintPhotos, so you’ll know at a glance that these are copies of your old print photos.

5. Make Sure You Back Up ALL Your Photos To At Least 3 Locations

Once you’ve finished scanning, copy the folder on your computer that contains all of your photos — the digital ones and print ones you just scanned — and save it with a different name, like Photo Archive Backup, with today’s date.

Place the copy of your backup folder in at least three different locations. Here are a few suggestions of safe places to store them:

On a flash drive or portable hard drive, and take them with you during evacuation on a key ring or in your plastic evacuation bin.
On a flash drive or portable hard drive, in a safe deposit box or water/fireproof safe in your own city.
On a flash drive or portable hard drive, in a safe deposit box, water/fireproof safe, or with relatives in the city where you would evacuate to in an emergency.
In a password-protected online file repository like OneDrive, iCloud or Dropbox, or on the file directory of your personal web site. This way, you can retrieve them from any web enabled computer.

You can also save a copy of your photos on a web-based service like Amazon Photos. But this shouldn’t be your only solution, since you have no control over the site & could lose your photos without any warning.

How To Scan Your Photos

There are several great ways to scan and preserve your photos.

And the nice thing about it, is that once it’s scanned, you can share it with family and friends or correct faded color, repair damage or otherwise restore old photographs.

You can scan your photos with your all-in-one printer, a regular scanner (all it does is scan), a portable wand scanner that you swipe over your photos one or several at a time, or a photo scanner, with a built-in feeder that protects and guides photos or slides through the scanner, for an extra layer of protection.

Here are some of our favorites.

HP Envy 7120 All-in-One Wireless Photo Printer

Most printers available now are all-in-one printers, that scan as well as print. This one is especially easy to use as a regular or photo printer and is compact enough to put on your desk. Not only can you scan and print high resolution photos directly on to acid free photo paper, but it’s also a wireless printer with HP ePrint, which means that you can send photos directly to your printer from your smartphone or tablet.

Portable Wand Scanners

Portable wand scanners, like the VuPoint Magic Wand Scanner, have come a long way. They run on batteries or are rechargeable and save anything you scan onto an SD card. From there, you can download the scans/photos directly to your computer via a USB cord, or you can pop the SD card out of the scanner and pop it into your computer to archive your scans.

The best part about having a portable wand scanner is that you can scan photos, documents, and even things like marriage certificates or historical documents by swiping the scanner over it, instead of having to feed them through your scanner one at a time.

It’s especially good, for scanning photos at relative’s homes. If Aunt Sadie doesn’t want her favorite photos the leaving her house, just take the scanner over and scan the ones you want. If you’re dealing with a fragile photo, you can even scan it right in the frame.

Or if you have delicate photos in a photo album – have you ever tried to peel photos out of an album without damaging them – you can simply open the book and sweep the scanner over the page.

From there, all you have to do is open the scanned page and crop the photos apart, saving each one as a separate photo. Photos archived, originals safeguarded!

Kodak P570 Personal Photo Scanner

This portable scanner not only expertly scans photos, but it has a special attachment that scans slides and negatives, turning them into full size, high-quality photos.

We found some slides that someone had given us, and since we never used slides ourselves, we didn’t have the equipment to look at them.

With the Kodak Scanner, all we did was feed the slide into the scanner and suddenly we had full color, beautiful photos that looked like they were processed last week. Absolutely amazing!

If you don’t have access to a scanner, then have a relative or friend scan them for you, or go to a copy shop like Fed Ex-Kinko’s to have them scanned. While you’re there, print color copies of your favorite photos on non-acid paper. This will ensure that they will last longer and will fade less as they age.

Now that you know what you’re doing, scan all the loose prints that you want to preserve, then save the scans to your computer to back them up.

Once you have all of your photos or documents scanned and saved, look through and find any that are damaged, faded or yellowed.

There are so many great photo software programs out there, like Adobe Photoshop Elements. But one scanner stands out among all the others in the marketplace, for color correction, right in the scanner.

It’s the Epson Perfection line of scanners, with Epson’s Easy Photo Fix software. Do you have any of those photos from the seventies and eighties that ended up a muddled brown-orange mess? This is the only easy solution we have found to restoring then back to their natural color. All you have to do is use the Auto Fix setting on the scanner and then scan your seventies photos. The scanner corrects the color while it scans.

Even if you have to touch them up a bit with Photoshop Elements afterwards, using the Epson scanner will save you hours if not days of manual color correction, that probably wouldn’t come out have as great as they do on the scanner.

High Tech Toys

Here are some of our favorite high-tech tools and toys to help you get all of your favorite photos, music, home videos, movies – and anything else that can be stored digitally – backed up, stored and accessible. Wherever you are. Whatever is going on around you. 24/7.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020

Anker PowerCore 5000 Portable Charger

Axis Self-Powered Safety Hub

Canon PowerShot Wi-Fi Enabled ELPH 190 Digital Camera

ClearClick Video to Digital Converter

Epson Perfection V600 Photo, Film, & Document Scanner

ez Share WiFi SD Card

Fireproof Document Bags

Sentry Fireproof/Waterproof Lateral File Cabinet

SentrySafe Fireproof and Waterproof Safe

HP Photo Printer All-in-One Wireless Envy 7120

ION Audio Premier LP Turntable Vinyl Record Player

Kodak P570 Personal Photo Scanner

Magnavox VHS to DVD Combo Recorder

Reshow Cassette Player MP3 Converter

Rocketbook Smart Reusable Notebook

SanDisk 32GB Connect Wireless Stick Flash Drive

SanDisk 32GB iXpand Flash Drive for iPhone and iPad

Sony 4K HD Video Camcorder

Sony HX400V Compact Digital Camera

VuPoint Handheld Magic Wand Portable Scanner

The COVID pandemic has created a new list of toys that people can’t do without — including some very cool high-tech solutions to unexpected challenges. Like staying healthy and working from home! Here are some of our favorites.

Cubii Pro Seated Under Desk Elliptical Machine

I’m Smiling On The Inside Face Masks

iHealth No-Touch Forehead Thermometer

iProvèn Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor

KODAK Luma 150 Pocket Projector

No-Touch Door Opener, Button Pusher Tool

Owlet Smart Sock 2 Baby Monitor

PhoneSoap 3 UV Smartphone Sanitizer

Sony Tie-Clip-Style Omnidirectional Microphone

Total Gym APEX G5 Total Body Strength Training

Zacurate Fingertip Pulse Oximeter

For a book’s worth of tips and tools on getting your stuff backed up and together, pick up a copy of our book “Back It Up” in paperback or via instant download.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Back It Up
I don’t know about you, but the most important keepsakes in our house are our old family photos, followed closely by our home movies and music. But grabbing piles of photo albums and all your picture frames off the walls is pretty hard to do when you’re running out the door! With Back It Up, you’ll learn quick, easy steps to back up your print/digital photos, home movies, music (including vinyl & cassettes) and save them in multiple, disaster proof locations. Paperback Or Instant Download

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1Nov2012

How To Choose An Evacuation Location

Posted in Earthquake, How To, Hurricanes, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes by Laura Greenwald

Updated 3/23/2021

The day after the Nepal Earthquake, the Joplin Tornadoes and Superstorm Sandy millions of people woke up to the reality of having to evacuate their homes and businesses.

The only good thing about Sandy being a hurricane and not an earthquake, was that residents had a few days to figure out where to go and what to do, when they received the order to evacuate.

But as anyone watching even five minutes of either the earthquake, tornado or hurricane coverage quickly realized, thousands of the people who were told to evacuate, stayed right where they were. Others evacuated not because they had a plan of where to go and what to do, but because they had no other choice. They’re currently sitting in a shelter or in a friend’s spare room, with absolutely no idea what they’re going to do next.

What about you? If that was your neighborhood and your family, and the firefighter knocked on YOUR door, where would you go? Why are we asking this question?

Because you have to know where you’re going , before you can get there!

Here’s how to do it quickly and easily.

1. Choose three different locations , because that will give you and your family a variety of choices that will keep you safe, no matter what circumstances you might face.

One location should be near your neighborhood, to be used in an emergency that only impacts your home.
One location should be out of your immediate area but in the same state . This is for a regional emergency.
One location should be out of state, for situations with widespread danger, like a wildfire or an earthquake.

2. How To Choose A Great Location

Before you zero in on the perfect location, come up with as many different locations as you can that you and your family can use for evacuation.

As you consider each location, think about:

The needs of the people traveling with you
How you’ll get there (car, bus, plane)
Any pets that will be traveling with you

3. Do Your Locations Have What You Need?

Once you’re certain you have the right places, consider whether each location will actually work for you and your family.

For instance if would need to stay in that location for two or three weeks, would it have everything that you and your family would need?

Would it be close enough to the stores or services your family might need, like pharmacies, clothing, banks and doctors?

Would you be able to get to work from that location, or are you able to work from home?

Does it have the furniture and supplies you would need to sustain you for two or three weeks?

4. We Have A Winner! Make That Three Winners

No location is perfect, so if you came up with one or two things your location would be lacking, be sure to note that on your Family Evacuation Plan, so that you can take care of it before you get there.

Speaking of your plan, once you have your locations set, grab a copy of our Family Evacuation Plan, or if you have our book Get Your Stuff Together, you’ll find a copy in the back of the book. It will take you through a couple of quick steps to help you create a complete evacuation plan for your family.

5. Making Your Plan Accessible

Print, scan or make three copies of the Evacuation Plan, and store it in at least three secure, damage-proof locations. That way if one or two of the locations are inaccessible, you’ll still be able to grab the information you need.

And store a copy in your cell phone as well, in case an emergency occurs while you’re away from home.

Want to download a copy of these instructions? Click here and save the PDF version to your computer.

Here is the link to part two of this series, How To Create Your Family Evacuation Plan.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

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How To Create A Get Back To Life Plan

Posted in Earthquake, How To, Hurricanes, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes by Laura Greenwald

How To Create A Get Back To Life Plan

Updated 3/23/2021

Imagine that you and your family are sitting around the house one summer afternoon just enjoying each other’s company, when a wildfire suddenly breaks out just a few blocks from your home. Depending on where you live, it could be a hurricane or a tornado, but let’s just call it a wildfire. A firefighter knocks on the door and tells you that you have to evacuate. Thankfully you know exactly what to do. You print a copy of your Family Emergency Plan, you all pile into the car with everything you need and drive directly to your evacuation location.

Two days later — one of two things happen…

Scenario One

Two days after the wildfire subsides, you and your family are in your evacuation location. The phone rings. It’s a friend of yours calling to tell you that your home is badly damaged, and doubts that you will be able to live in it for at least two months if not longer. After you and your family get past the initial shock, you finally feel strong enough to open your Backup Plan Notebook. There you find your Get Back To Life Plan and begin making calls to your insurance agent, your contractor and your boss. You call the local real estate agent in your evacuation city and ask her to begin looking for temporary housing, register your children in the local school and begin calling the contacts on your list that you’ve chosen to help you settle in.

Getting settled is easier than you thought since you have copies of all of the vital documents you need, like your birth certificates and property deeds in a safe deposit box at the local branch of your bank. With a little hard work and a lot of courage, you and your family are back to living a normal life in a matter of weeks.

Scenario Two

Two days after the fire subsides, you and your family are staying in a relative’s spare room two counties over. The phone rings. It’s that friend of yours calling to tell you that your home is badly damaged, and doubts that you will be able to live in it for at least two months if not longer. After you and your family get past the initial shock, you realize that you have no idea what you’re going to do.

Same scenario, same challenges, one difference.

One path comes with a plan for finding your way back.

Facing a disaster – even a small one without giving yourself a plan to recover from it is like trying to build a house with no blueprint and no tools!

It’s exactly what’s facing the survivors of the Nepal earthquake and what those who experienced the Fukushima & Haiti earthquakes, the Norman Oklahoma, Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes and the Colorado wildfires are still dealing with.

Let’s make sure Scenario Two doesn’t happen to you and your family. In the last blog post, you created a plan to get you to your desired evacuation location. But once you’re there, you’ll need to know what you’ll need and how things will function over the next three days, three weeks, or worst case scenario, three months. Let’s see how prepared you would be to actually live in that location, until you can go back home.

Download a copy of our Get Back To Life Plan, or if you have our book The Backup Plan 3.0, you’ll find a copy in the back of the book. Go over the questions below and once you’ve gotten a feel for the exercise, go ahead and complete the plan.

1. Does the place we’re evacuating to have all the furniture and supplies we will need for up to one month?

2. What type of clothing would we need?

3. Can we store any basic supplies there before they’re needed, or do we need to purchase supplies when we arrive?

4. How will we handle our bank accounts, paying our monthly bills? How much emergency cash do we need to have while traveling? What are our credit card limits and toll free numbers for emergency increases?

5. How will we work? Will I be able to receive my paycheck in that location? Will we work remotely or have to look for new positions? What people or contacts can we call about temporary or permanent jobs?

6. How will we handle our medical, dental and prescription medicine needs while in the new location? Can we get referrals to doctors and dentists that we can use, if need be, when we get there?

7. How long can we stay in our evacuation location? If the evacuation lasts longer than we think, where will we go/stay? Do we have real estate contacts if we need to find new permanent or temporary housing?

8. How will we secure the property or vehicles we have to leave behind?

9. How will we take care of our pets during the evacuation and until we find new permanent housing?

10. How will we handle our transportation needs? What contacts will we need to purchase or lease vehicles?

11. How will we handle our daycare needs? How will we handle getting our children into school if it becomes necessary? What documents will we need to enroll them in a new school in a temporary or new location?

12. How will we handle any special needs in our family? How will we handle any potential problems we have identified?

Once you have you’ve answered the questions, complete your Get Back To Life Plan. Once you’re finished, print, scan or make three copies of the Plan, and store it in at least three secure, damage-proof locations. And while you’re at it, store a copy in your cell phone as well, in case an emergency occurs while you’re away from home.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

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How To Track A Tornado With Your iPhone

Posted in How To, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes by Laura Greenwald

Updated 3/23/2021

Life in Arkansas has always meant living with tornadoes.

Fortunately in her town, they’ve experienced fewer tornadoes than their Oklahoma neighbors because of the protection of the Ozarks. However in April of 2011, something shifted and spin-up tornadoes began battering her neighborhood. It’s a good thing she was able to take her brand new tornado assistant with her into the shelter of her bathtub, to help her keep an eye on the storm and to provide constant communication with her mom – a few neighborhoods away holed up in her own bathtub. Melissa’s assistant? Her iPad.

As a weather spotter for her local CBS affiliate, KFSM, Melissa usually takes pictures of the weather, especially lightning, but one night in April was so bad she left her camera in the case for protection. Armed with her computer, iPad and iPhone, Melissa headed into her bathroom for safety. As the tornado neared, she was streaming the live news broadcast on her computer and the live Doppler radar on her iPad, while texting three meteorologists and her mom. She snuck a peek out the window and spotted a lowering wall cloud, then the rotation down on the bottom. Her two cats were in the bathroom with her and wanted nothing of being barricaded until they started feeling the house shake and dove into the tub with her. “It felt like the house had two hands around it shaking it,” said Melissa recalling that night. “it shuddered and shuddered and then it stopped.”

The iPad gave Melissa something she and her family never had before – up to the second streaming radar and news updates. With the iPad she was able to see, via live radar that the danger had passed and the storms had dissipated. Without live streaming local weather broadcasts, families never knew when a storm was over and ended up staying in bathrooms or basements for hours just to be sure. Now she knows immediately when the storm has passed.

Another difference is the ability to communicate several different ways. “A woman in Joplin who was buried by the tornado in her basement had her cell phone with her and was able to dial out and tell people to come get her. She lived because of her cell phone,” said Melissa. “If my house fell down and I was trapped, I would be able to call out with my iPad or iPhone and tell people that I needed help and to come get me.” What makes the newer versions of the iPad different than many tablets, is that it can connect to the internet both with Wi-Fi and via a 3G or 4G cellular connection. So if the cellphone lines are down, you can still connect via Wi-Fi or vice versa.

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The best part about the iPad is that it’s smaller than a computer and lighter, but has a bigger screen than an iPhone, helping Melissa follow the progress of the storm. But the thing that made the real difference were Melissa’s iPad apps, some of which are the same apps that her friend, meteorologist Garrett Lewis uses at KFSM, for his own storm reports.

She uses a new radar app called RadarScope along with her KFSM weather app and the app from the Weather Channel. The RadarScope is about $10 but for people in areas with a lot of bad storms, it’s invaluable.

Even though Melissa takes her computer and iPad into the bathroom with her for safekeeping during storms, she can’t just rely on that to keep her documents and photos safe. That why she’s started using Apple’s Mobile Me on the iCloud to store her computer documents. If she ever loses a document – or needs to restore a damaged computer, all she has to do is go to her Time Capsule, choose a day before the damage was done and Time Capsule will restore her documents back to her computer or iPad just as they were, before the damage happened.

The Time Capsule isn’t just for iPads and Macs. iPhone users can also use it to back up the information on their phones including contacts, voice mail and texts, ensuring that a mistakenly deleted message isn’t gone forever.

And those are just a few of the apps Melissa and other iPad users can’t get enough of. Another friend from Apple pays all of her bills on the iPad, which makes keeping up with finances effortless, especially during an emergency or an evacuation. Another app helps her track her medical care at a local hospital, giving her test results, letting her make appointments and makes her medical history available to her and her doctor if she needs treatment outside of her area.

Another helpful app is Find My iPhone (or iPad). Just install it on your device and if your phone is lost or stolen it will track it with GPS, play a sound so someone will find it, send a voicemail to the phone telling whoever finds it to call you or if stolen, will remotely wipe your data from the phone for safekeeping.

And those are just a few of the 100,000 apps available for the iPad alone – there are more than 400,000 for the iPhone and iPod/Touch.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Keep Everything You Love Safe | The Book Inspired By The Blog

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How To Get Ready For A Tornado

Posted in How To, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes by Laura Greenwald

Updated 3/23/2021

How To Get Your Stuff Together For A Tornado

The past few years have been deadly for tornadoes.

Last year it was Oklahoma, Tennessee and Illinois. This year, tornado season has barely begun and already Alabama and Georgia have been struck by F3 twisters decimating Beauregard and other towns in Lee County.

So what’s the best way to prepare for a tornado?

The worst thing about tornadoes is that you don’t usually have plenty of warning that one is about to strike. But if you take the time to create a simple plan, you’ll know how to get the people you love and the stuff that is most important to you to a safe place, as quickly and easily as possibly.

With preparation comes the ability to not only survive a tornado, but to thrive after the emergency has passed. Here’s how to do it…

The Three Step Approach.

Step One

Make sure that you have your disaster survival gear at your fingertips and that you know how to secure your home and personal safety when a tornado strikes. Know where your tornado shelter is — if it isn’t in your home — and the quickest and easiest routes to get there. In fact, it might be a good idea to hold practice drills to see how quickly you and the kids can get out of the house and sheltered from the storm, with everything you need.

Step Two

Make sure that you have everything you need – necessities, keepsakes, vital information – in the shelter with you or waiting for you in your pre-determined evacuation location. This is a lot easier than it sounds, if you have a storm shelter in your home. All you need is to do is to take the necessary steps now, to ensure you have access to all the items and information that will help you get back to living your normal life, as quickly and easily as possible. You’ll also want to make sure that the things that are most vital to you — your important papers, financial and insurance information, treasured photos, videos and music and scannable keepsakes are backed up onto a portable hard drive and stored in a safe deposit box or safe, in the town where you will go during evacuation. That way it will be safe, sound and waiting for you when you arrive.

Step Three

Make sure that you have a pre-written plan of what you’ll do and where you’ll go when a disaster strikes, including a plan for how you’ll get back to your normal life, once the disaster is over.

Because tornadoes can happen so suddenly, most families end up having to ride out the storm in their shelter, storm cellar or bathroom. But having to shelter in place doesn’t mean that you don’t need a plan, not only to survive the storm and evacuate if necessary once it passes, but to ensure that you and your family have everything you need to get back to living, once the emergency is over. We’ve got two other blog posts I’d like to recommend for two very specific tornado-related challenges. One is communication. Technology has completely revolutionized the way we ride out tornadoes. We interviewed a reporter from Arkansas recently who spent last tornado season in her bathtub, staying safe using up to the minute storm tracker apps and disaster safety utilities on her iPad and iPhone. If you have a lot of tornadoes in your area, you’ve GOT to read this interview. It could literally save your life.

The second post is about a TV show — CSI: Miami to be exact. They did an episode about a tornado last season that was not only very well done, but one of the characters lost her life because her parents failed to do one simple thing. Find out what it was at this link.

If you live in an area of the country prone to tornadoes, you absolutely need an Evacuation Plan and a Get Back To Life Plan. If you don’t know the evacuation routes in your area, call your local fire department for this information way before tornado season. And while you’re at it, make sure you also ask them where the emergency shelters are in your area in case you suddenly need one. You always need to know where you’re going and what you and your family would do if your area becomes uninhabitable. If necessary make a plan with other relatives or neighbors to evacuate together and share transportation and costs.

Even if the tornado doesn’t physically impact your home, your neighborhood and city might still without power or basic city services for a few days. Telephone and/or cell service could also be down. That means not only means you won’t have light, but you also won’t have power for computers or televisions and radios. Grocery and drug stores won’t be able to ring up purchases, ATMs won’t work, garage door openers might not function. Name any tool or convenience we rely on in this world and chances are it’s powered by electricity.

So your first defense is making sure that you always have an alternative source of power, battery powered flashlights, extra cash, a supply of canned or frozen food that doesn’t need to be cooked to be eaten, and the all-important supply of water – enough to last you and everyone in your family for three days. Since your home or neighborhood might have significant damage, keep rubber-soled shoes, a warm jacket and other emergency gear within reach of your bed or right inside your closet. Rubber soled shoes will protect your feet from the broken glass and rocks that will probably be strewn everywhere.

We aren’t going to get into the details of how to turn off your gas, when to boil water or a list of items to have on hand for a tornado, because there are literally hundreds of sources for that information.

You should also create or update your evacuation checklist, detailing the items that you and your family would need if you were unable to live in your home for three or more days. This includes all of your necessities, prescriptions, vital documents (or access to them on portable hard drives, online or in out of area safe deposit boxes), keepsakes, personal and professional contacts, ID and basic medical history and anything else that your family will need while evacuated.

Talking about a tornado is one thing. But experiencing that devastation first hand puts things in perspective.

Here’s a quote from LA Times reporters Nicholas Riccardi, Matt Pearce and Robin Abcarian, on the scene after the Joplin, Missouri tornado. (5/23/11)

“When the tornado hit, Staci Perry, a scrub technician at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, had just left the operating room to grab a piece of equipment for a surgery in progress. An urgent announcement came over the loudspeaker: “Execute condition gray.” That was the hospital’s code for an impending disaster, though in drills, the command was always preceded by “Prepare for condition gray.”

There was no time to prepare. As she heard the massive glass walls crack, Perry, 33, dashed back to surgery. “The pressure in everyone’s ears was just tremendous,” she said. A physician’s assistant threw himself against the door so it wouldn’t blow in and destroy the operating room. The lights went out. The wind howled.

“Literally, the hospital imploded,” said Dr. Jim Riscoe, an emergency room physician at the 230-bed facility. There is an emergency plan for disasters, he said, “but they don’t anticipate the emergency being the hospital.”When it was over, just after 5:30 p.m. Sunday, the storm had gouged a six-mile swath roughly half a mile wide in this city of 50,000 people. At least 116 people died, five of them hospital patients.The apocalyptic after-images were depressingly familiar, reminiscent of those from the deadly April tornadoes in the South: rubble as far as the eye could see, cars buried under pieces of houses, trees wrenched from the ground with massive roots reaching toward the sky, columns of smoke rising from gas fires, emergency vehicles with lights flashing. And everywhere, knots of people stunned by nature’s violence mourned their losses, counted their blessings and told their harrowing stories.”

So what do you think? Is it worth a few minutes of your time to make sure your family is ready to deal with any emergency — including a tornado?

That article always reminds me of CNN or FOX news coverage of whatever storm just took place. One thing is always the same. The faces of the people in the midst of the storm.

They looked shell-shocked, terrified, lost. Most of those people, were at least moderately prepared for a disaster.

Those in tornado country most likely had stockpiled some food and water, those in hurricane country might even have evacuated and done everything their local news and emergency authorities told them to do. And yet, after the disaster, they were standing there, scared and helpless, because their homes, the people they loved, and basically their entire lives have been destroyed to the point that their own existence was now unrecognizable. All of those people, rich and poor, young and old — they all had one thing in common. They had NO idea where to go and what to do from here.

Preparing your home for a tornado is vital, but there is really only so much you can do. For example, in any of the recent F4 or F3 tornadoes, people did a phenomenal job tornado proofing their homes.

But the one thing they could do nothing about, was the tornado itself. Based on the way the storm approached and its intensity when it touched down, there was no level of tornado preparedness that could save the homes in the path of the twister. In many neighborhoods every single home, tornado preparation or not, was gone, with nothing but a foundation left standing. And along with tornado, went the contents of those homes and businesses.

That’s why your tornado emergency plan, must include a way to instantly locate and safeguard the vital information, documents and keepsakes that you’ll need to have access to after the emergency has passed. And once you create the plan, you can use it in any emergency – not just tornadoes.

And THAT – knowing what to do and where to go after the disaster is over, is step three. The most important step of all.

Facing a disaster without giving yourself a plan to recover from it, is like trying to build a house with no blueprint and no tools!

Having two plans can make all the difference in getting you through those first few days and weeks after a disaster strikes.

What are the plans? They are the Backup Plan Evacuation Plan and the Get Back To Life Plan — the same plans that we’ve built into our book Ready.

The evacuation plan is pretty simple. It all comes from one question… If you were at home or at work and suddenly had to evacuate your home, or your general area, where would you go?

As you think about the locations you’ll use for your evacuation, consider, the people traveling with you, how you’ll get there (car, bus, plane), any pets traveling with you and whether those locations will actually work for you – for instance are they close to stores or services your family might need, like pharmacies, clothing, banks and doctors.

We suggest that people have three different locations in mind, to give you different types of locations and choices depending on the circumstances. As you create your plan, write everything down in detail. If you have to use this plan, you and the people you love are probably going to be in panic mode and following an easy to understand plan, will help calm and focus you.

Write down the people who will be traveling with you, and any special instructions you’ll need to gather everyone together, in case a disaster or emergency occurs while you’re all away from home. Name the location that you and your family will use to meet up with each other and the location you will be evacuating to, if you cannot live in your home, but your immediate area is still safe. Include the address of the location, contact phone, email address and directions.

Next choose a location (writing down the details, address and contact information) that your family will use if you not only need to evacuate your home, but your immediate area or city. This might happen during a moderate hurricane or a tornado. Your third location is out of state, for a serious, widely destructive emergency like the Japan or Chile Earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, the Colorado Wildfires, or other disaster that will make your entire region uninhabitable.

You will also include these locations on your emergency wallet card and your family’s wallet cards. Now, no matter what the disaster, even a fire or local emergency, you and your family will now know where and how to gather, and who will be responsible for what, so you can quickly reunite and travel on to your emergency location together. If you like, you can also give a card to the person you chose to be your out-of-area contact as well.

Will you have any pets traveling with you? Be sure to fill out the pet section, so that you will have all the information you need for them, like the name and numbers for the veterinarian, their licenses, and names/numbers of kennels in the location you are evacuating to and any prescriptions or special instructions you’ll need until you return home.

Your Get Back To Life Plan

The worst part of any disaster, short of losing a loved one, is the possibility that the home you love and care for and everything in it would be damaged beyond repair. That is what your Get Back To Life Plan is all about.

Imagine that you and your family have survived the flood, but had to leave your area because it is uninhabitable.

You’re in your evacuation location two days after the waters subside. The phone rings. It’s a good friend of yours, who has just toured your neighborhood and is calling to tell you that your home is badly damaged and he doubts that you will be able to live in it for several months, if ever again.

After you and your family hold each other for a while and talk, you finally feel strong enough to open your Ready In 10 Notebook. There you find your Get Back To Life Plan and begin making calls to your insurance agent, your contractor and your boss. You call the local real estate agent in your evacuation city and ask her to begin looking for temporary housing, register your children in the local school, and begin calling the contacts you need (that you jotted down just in case), to help you settle in. Getting settled is easier than you thought, since you have copies of all of the vital documents you need, like your birth certificates and property deeds in a safe deposit box at the local bank. It takes some time, but with hard work and a lot of courage, you and your family are back to living in a matter of weeks.

Now imagine the same scenario, the same phone call, holding your family, talking and then realizing that you have no plan and no clue how to get back to living your life. It’s CNN coverage all over again. The best part of this little scenario is that it hasn’t happened to you and that you have time right now, to make sure no matter what ever occurs in your area, you and your family will be prepared.

If you don’t have a copy of our actual Get Back To Life Plan grab one from the blog post or just grab a piece of paper.

Take a few minutes to think about the following questions:

How will we handle our bank accounts, paying our monthly bills and receiving our paychecks? How much emergency cash do we need to have, while traveling?
What are our credit card limits and toll free numbers for emergency increases?
How will we work? Will we work remotely or have to look for new positions? What people or contacts can we call about temporary or permanent jobs?
How will we handle our medical, dental and prescription needs while in the new location? What doctors and dentists can we use while there?
How long can we stay in our evacuation location? If we need to remain evacuated longer, where will we go/stay? Who will our real estate contacts be, if we need to find new permanent or temporary housing?
How are we going to secure the property or vehicles we had to leave behind?
How will we take care of our pets, during the evacuation and until we find new permanent housing?
How will we handle our transportation needs? What contacts will we need to purchase or lease vehicles?
How will we handle our daycare needs? How will we handle getting our children into school if necessary? What schools or contacts will we need, to enroll them in a new school in a temporary or new location?
How will we handle any special needs in our family?

Once you’ve answered the questions, get your family together to work out any potential problems you have uncovered and then draft your plan. And don’t forget to compile a list of real estate agents, financial contacts and jobs, schools, doctors and other professionals or information that you might need to establish yourself in the new city temporarily or permanently.

Of course those are only two parts of your Backup Plan. Your family’s complete Backup Plan should also include:

1. Your Vital Information List: Copies of documents and a way to make them secure and accessible.
2. Your Medical Information List: Medical, allergy and prescription drug history and insurance information for each person evacuating.
3. Your ICE Contacts, Emergency Wallet Cards/ID, and optional Mobile Command Center.
4. Your Backup Plan Evacuation Plan: Who is going to be evacuating with you, where will you go, where will you stay, and how will you get there?
5. Your Evacuation Checklist: The items, you need to take with you.
6. Your Get Back To Life Plan: What you and your family will do if you are unable to live in your home, or city for an extended amount of time.
7. Your Home Inventory

Starting over is never easy, especially when it happens because of a disaster or other life changing emergency. But taking a few hours now to think through and draft a plan, will give you and your family the direction, information and support that you need, to get through not only the first hours and days after a disaster, but the first steps back to living the life you’ve worked so hard to build.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Keep Everything You Love Safe | The Book Inspired By The Blog

At Your Fingertips | Make Your Smartphone Even Smarter

After All It’s YOUR Birth Certificate

Posted in Earthquake, How To, Hurricanes, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes by Laura Greenwald

Updated 3/22/2021

You can’t rely on City Hall to replace your birth certificate after a flood or a hurricane. Chances are good that their originals will be just as waterlogged as yours are.

Just ask the victims of the last hurricane.

After their vital documents were destroyed in the hurricane, many homeowners returned and went straight to the county recorder, bank, or schools to grab copies of their lost documents. Unfortunately, many institutions and offices were destroyed too, along with all of their records. It’s up to you to ensure that you have the copies of the documents that you and your family need, whenever and wherever you need them.

When you think about it, vital documents are more valuable to you, your finances and your family than they are to some local government official. And if that’s the case, you’re the one who has to make sure that you know where your vital documents are and that you have instant access to them at all times.

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and more recently with the tornadoes in Oklahoma and Illinois, residents returned to their homes to find them destroyed. Once they began to piece their lives back together, they realized they would need school transcripts and birth certificates or benefit determination letters. So they went to their schools or state and city offices for help, only to find them under water or destroyed – along with all of the paper based records that had not yet been digitized. You can’t count on your city to replace your records when they have just as good a chance of having their own copies destroyed in the same regional disaster. And even federal buildings have had problems. Fires in government buildings during the twentieth century destroyed many state censuses and at least one complete United States Census, wiping out the names, dates, and data of entire families.

And even when you can apply for a replacement copy of a birth, marriage or death certificate, don’t count on getting an exact copy of the original. We were very surprised to find that out when we went to get an additional original copy of our birth certificates and those of my mother and grandmother. Theirs were the same as the originals, but mine was completely different. Gone were the details of my birth, the signatures, my parents’ middle names and occupations.

The new copy is simply the child’s name, parents’ first and last names, hospital, county and birth date. The clerk told us that they’ve decided to streamline birth and marriage certificates, getting rid of all those old “useless” details and replacing them only with what “matters”. Why? To save space, along with the money that it would take to transcribe all that data. But along with it, go all the details that add history and uniqueness to people’s lives – the story of their birth. We’re huge proponents of knowing your family history and working to preserve it and can’t fathom the fact that cities and states across America are deleting all of those clues people need to find out where they come from. Wow! There’s a case for having several backup copies of those originals if I ever heard one!

We suggest people keep copies of their vital documents in at least three different places. Scan or copy the originals of each paper document.

1) Put the originals in a waterproof safe or bin or locking file cabinet in your home.

2) Once you’ve scanned the originals, place them on a flash or portable hard drive and put that flash or hard drive in a safe deposit box in your own city. If you can’t scan them just make copies and place those copies in the safe deposit box.

3) Place the third set of scans/copies in a safe deposit box outside of your city, in your family’s evacuation location. Wherever you and your family will relocate during an area-wide evacuation.

Why do we advocate scanning? Scanning allows you to have an exact, electronic copy of that original document, both on your computer and on a flash drive or portable hard drive. Not only can you secure it, you can even email it to someone else for safekeeping. And with a scan, if that original is ever damaged or destroyed, you will be able to reprint it to create a clear, perfect original. On the other hand, if you don’t scan a document and simply make another paper copy, it’s just as likely to be harmed or to fade and decay with age. If you don’t have access to a scanner, go ahead and make copies. Just make sure that you put them in different locations to minimize the danger of loss or destruction.

This leads me to my last point on vital documents. If it’s so much better to have documents scanned and saved electronically, why do we advocate keeping paper copies as well? For the same reason we advocate keeping prints of your cherished photos, even though you have them saved to your computer or on a CD. For safe keeping! As wonderful and trustworthy as electronic storage is, do you really want to trust the ONLY copies of your vital documents to a computer or an online file or photo archive? We sure don’t!

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Keep Everything You Love Safe | The Book Inspired By The Blog

At Your Fingertips | Make Your Smartphone Even Smarter

How To Access Your Money Wherever & Whenever You Need It

Posted in Earthquake, How To, Hurricanes, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes, wildfires by Laura Greenwald

Updated 3/22/2021

A firefighter knocks on your door. You open it and he tells you that there’s an emergency in the neighborhood affecting your home and that have only 10 minutes to evacuate. Now. And chances are, you won’t be able to set foot in your home for three or more days.

How much money would you need to take care of yourself and your family until you get back home?

Five hundred dollars?

A thousand?

Do you have that much cash in the house?

And even if you do, is it really safe to carry that much cash around with you during a disaster?

Remember the thousands of people fleeing Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Harvey or California’s Camp, Thomas and Mendocino Wildfires? Definitely not!

What you really need are two different things.

A specific amount of cash & ACCESS to your money.

Let’s find out how much you would need to take care of your family…

Grab a pencil and paper and answer the following questions.

If you needed to leave your area due to a disaster evacuation, could you still access money from your bank in a different neighborhood? A different city? A different state?
Do you know how much money you can take out of your primary bank’s ATM at one location? During one 24 hour period?
If you could only use cash on hand for one to three weeks, how much cash would you and your family need in your wallet to take care of your normal expenses?
Do you know how much credit you have available on your credit cards? Is it possible for you to get an emergency increase? If so, do you know how to get one?
If there was a disaster in your geographical area that affected workplace as well as your home, would you still receive a paycheck from your company? Do you receive you check via direct deposit, via mail or do you physically pick it up?

Well how did you do?

If you’re like most people, you were scratching your head by the second question and running for your statements and calculator by the third.

Here are a few recommendations to make sure that you can access your money, any time and any place that you need it.

Bank Accounts/Access to Cash

Know how much you and your family would most likely need for up to five days and then up to three weeks, without access to your local bank. Here’s a great rule of thumb.

Groceries + Pharmacy + Gasoline + 2 Urgent Care Co-Payments + 25%

What you usually spend in one week on: Groceries, Pharmacy/Drug Store, Gasoline and your co-payment for two urgent care/doctor/ER visits. Once you have that figure, add 25% more to cover unexpected expenses. An easy way to save the money, is to put away a certain amount every week — let’s say $20, until you meet your goal.
If you live in a disaster prone area, consider keeping a certain amount of cash ($200-400), in a safe at home or in your evacuation location.
Know how much you can take out of the bank per ATM and per day.
Place a copy of a bank statement/check from each bank account and copies of your credit cards and debit cards (front and back) on a password protected flash drive in your emergency bin, in your safe deposit box and in a safe deposit box in your evacuation location.
If that new account won’t be your main account, be sure to deposit a little money in it or make a small ATM withdrawal every few months to keep it active.
Make sure that one of your bank accounts is with a major bank that gives you nationwide access to your money. We’ll get into this more in the next section.

Credit Cards

Know your credit limit and the customer service number you would have to call to temporarily raise it. Make sure that you note those limits, customer service numbers and any rules or guidelines on your Vital Information Grab It & Go Form.
If you have more than one credit card or debit card in your wallet, choose at least two different brands. For example a Visa and a MasterCard or Discover card. That way if one is not accepted at a store or restaurant, the other one probably will be. Going from one restaurant to another with a car full of hungry children, isn’t fun!

The most important part of this exercise is…

Knowing how much money you need to have at your fingertips

Where to keep it, so that you can access even more money quickly and easily.

What About Your Bank?

When you chose your current bank, you probably considered things like their good interest rates, proximity to your home or their friendly tellers.

Making sure that you had 24/7 access to your money in an emergency, wherever you are, probably wasn’t in your top ten criteria. Unfortunately good interest rates and friendly tellers aren’t going to help you feed your children and fill up your gas tank in an unfamiliar town.

Fortunately technology is on your side. Most major brick and mortar and online banks give you access to your money wherever you are in the country. With them, you can bank online, transfer money between accounts or to other people, and even deposit checks into an ATM which can be a huge selling point if that paycheck you’re holding is going to help you exist for the coming week. Another perq is nationwide access to ATMs nationwide or fee rebates if you have to use another bank’s ATM. With a debit card, you can even make purchases or get cash back without a fee, if you can’t find an ATM.

Just remember, if this new account won’t be your main account, be sure to use the ATM card or make a deposit every now and then, so it remains open.

And It’s Not Just About Disasters…

By the way, it doesn’t take a natural disaster for you to need immediate access to your money. What about a medical emergency? You’re in the emergency room and need cash, but the hospital only has one ATM, and it’s not for your bank. Or your car could break down a hundred miles away from home. Or, as we’ve all learned the last several years, banks can be taken over by federal regulators, severely limiting depositor access for days or weeks.

So what’s the moral of the story? Actually we have two.

1. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

2. Make sure you have baskets every place you need them.

Keep these two things in mind when managing your money, and you’ll be in better shape than 95% of your friends. But do me a favor. Once you have things set up for yourself, share what you’ve learned. Your friends will thank you for it.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Keep Everything You Love Safe | The Book Inspired By The Blog

At Your Fingertips | Make Your Smartphone Even Smarter

How To Make A Home Inventory

Posted in Earthquake, How To, Hurricanes, Life Hacks, The Backup Plan, Tornadoes, wildfires by Laura Greenwald

Updated 9/28/21

Close your eyes for a moment. Picture the room you’re sitting in, in your mind.

Picture each item, focusing especially on the items that mean the most to you or have the most monetary value. When you’re done open your eyes. Did you miss anything? If you’re like most people, no matter how certain you were that you remembered everything, you still missed a lot of things that you would want to replace.

And even if you did pretty well, do you know off the top of your head what items were still under warranty, what was insured and for how much? In other words, if this hadn’t been an exercise, but an insurance agent or a police officer writing down a list of your valuables after a burglary or a hurricane, would you have been happy with the list you made?

I didn’t think so.

Memory is a wonderful thing, but it can be affected by many factors, like stress, trauma and fatigue – exactly the things that happen during an emergency. That’s why putting together a list of your treasured or valued objects while they’re sitting in your living room and still in great condition is a MUCH better idea.

And while we’re at it, that reminds me of something else we all have to deal with. I don’t know about you, but to us, it seems like there’s a new cellphone, computer, or gadget of some kind out in the stores every day.

Every time you decide to buy a new one, it comes with more cords and manuals than anyone has room to store. And if you decided to spring for the protection plan too, that hits the mailbox a few days later. With just a few new toys, you can easily end up with a folder full of paper.

Who can keep up with that?

YOU can! And very easily, too. In the Action Steps below, we’re going to create a Home Inventory. Just go through the steps, and decide room by room what items to include. In fact if you have kids or grandkids in the house, this is a great project for them. Once you decide which items to include, send them off on a scavenger hunt, list in hand along with a digital and video camera and have them take photos of each item. Then when they’re done, enter each item along with its information into our downloadable Home Inventory Form, and you’re done.

Take Action

1. Download Our Home Inventory List

Click here to grab a copy of our Home Inventory Form, or if you already own our book Keep Everything You Love Safe, you’ll find copies in the book and in the downloadable forms.

2. Grab Your Cameras & A Pencil

Go get your video camera, your digital camera, your list and a pencil and begin walking through each room of your home. Start with the living room, usually home to the most expensive electronic equipment.

3. Document All the Info You Can Find

For each valued item, (electronics, furniture, cars, art, jewelry or any other items that would be expensive to replace or repair), fill in a short description, the manufacturer, serial number and any other information you know about it.

If you have a copy of your warranty information, or original purchase receipts for any of the valued items, note the information on them on the Home Inventory List, then put those documents on the side until Step 6.

4. Your Chance To Play Spielberg

As you stop at each item, take a digital photo of it, to show its current condition. If the item is damaged in a disaster, you’ll have proof of the item’s original condition to give to the claims adjuster. It will also remind you what the item looked like, if it ever needs to be replaced

5. Spielberg Revisited

Once you’re finished with the room, grab your video camera and do a quick video tour. At the beginning of the videotape, clearly state today’s date and the room you’re photographing. And while you’re taping, be sure to show the general condition of the room as well as your valued items.

6. Paperwork, paperwork

Gather all of the warranties, protection plans, certificates of insurance, provenance papers and receipts that you have found, and put them in the same location. It doesn’t matter whether it is a file folder or a section inside your safe. Just make sure that every time you purchase a new item that comes with any of this paperwork, that you put it in the same place.

7. Now for safekeeping…

Print, scan or make three copies of the Home Inventory List, the walking tour photos, the video and the warranties, receipts and other documents that you located earlier and store them in at least three secure, damage-proof locations. That way if one or two of the locations are inaccessible, you’ll still be able to grab the information you need.

And that’s it! Just follow the steps and you’re done. No more having to remember every single thing in your house. Just be sure to update your list every six months. Or if you watch a lot of QVC or HSN, every three months…

High Tech Toys

Here are some high-tech toys are designed to help you get the information you need, keepsakes you treasure and people you love, through life’s little and not so little disasters and easily as possible. In other words, toys that are just waiting to smooth out life’s little speed bumps.

The COVID pandemic has created a new list of toys that people can’t do without — including some very cool high-tech solutions to unexpected challenges. Like staying healthy and working from home! Here are some of our favorites.

For a book’s worth of tips and tools on getting your stuff backed up and together, pick up a copy of our book “Ready In 10” or “Keep Everything You Love Safe” in paperback or via instant download.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Keep Everything You Love Safe | The Book Inspired By The Blog

Back It Up

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Updated 3/7/21

How To Back Up Your Parent’s Printed Photos

I don’t know about you, but the worst part about watching coverage of earthquakes — like the quakes in Ecuador and Japan — is the look on victim’s faces as they pick through the rubble of their homes, trying to find a photo of their wedding or of their children.

In today’s world, now that we have smartphones, taking photos has become a daily event. If one gets harmed or destroyed, we just print out another copy. Not true though for old family photos that are hanging on the wall, or worse, stuck like glue inside a yellowed photo album.

So give this post a quick read, grab the tools you need for the job and let’s get Mom and Dad’s photos and cameras squared away once and for all!

One thing that makes print photos harder to archive than other keepsakes is the simple fact that we get so used to seeing our favorite photos hanging around the house, that we don’t always think to take them off the wall and scan them for safekeeping.

1. Grab a pencil and paper

…and go around the house jotting down all the non-digital photos or photo collections you want to secure and their current location.

2. Gather all of the photos that you located.

Although all of your photos are important, some mean more to your parents than others.

Take a few moments to look at the photo albums, prints and framed photos and separate them into two different piles.

In the first pile, place photos that you want to copy and save in a digital format, for safekeeping.

In the second pile, place photos that you:

Already have in digital format and could easily recopy if the one you’re holding was harmed or destroyed.

Have numerous other copies of the photo in other locations. Check to make sure that this is actually true, before you decide not to scan them.

Simply don’t care enough about to keep it disaster safe.

You can go ahead and put the photos in the second pile back where you found them.

3. Scan Away!

If you already have digital photos on your computer, save these scanned photos to a new folder within your photos folder. For example, ScannedPrintPhotos, so you’ll know at a glance which photos are the ones you scanned.

4. Make Sure You Back Up ALL Your Photos To At Least Three Locations

•On a flash drive or portable hard drive, and take them with you during evacuation on a key ring or in your plastic evacuation bin.

•On a flash drive or portable hard drive, in a safe deposit box or water/fireproof safe in your own city.

•On a flash drive or portable hard drive, in a safe deposit box, water/fireproof safe, or with relatives in the city where you’ll be evacuating.

•In a password-protected online file repository or on the file directory of your family’s personal web site. This way, you can retrieve them from any Internet-enabled computer.

•You can also save an extra copy of your photos on Flickr or another internet photo service. But this really shouldn’t be your long-term solution or only solution, since you have no control over these sites and could lose all of your data without any warning.

•If you really want to keep photos on a secure site that you can share with your family, try iMemories.com. Not only do they have great servers with outstanding redundant backup capability, but they can even put your photos on DVD for you, providing an extra layer of safety.

If you need more help scanning your photos — or if you have delicate or color challenged photos that need a bit more attention, here are a few tips.

How To Scan Your Photos

Most printers available now are three or four in one printers, that scan as well as print. You can also scan your photos with a dedicated flatbed scanner (all it does is scan).

Now that you know what you’re doing, scan all the loose prints that you want to preserve. The higher the dpi the better the quality, so use 300 or 600 on your oldest, most treasured photos. Then save the scans to your computer to back them up.

Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!

Back It Up

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Updated 3/8/21

When someone says “winter weather,” most people think of snow.

But in some areas of the country, particularly the South, winter can be an active time for severe storms and tornadoes. And as we see all the time — like the Alabama and Georgia tornadoes. They don’t even hit during “tornado season”.

In fact, on Dec. 23-24, 2014, 10 tornadoes hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, killing five people and injuring more than 50.

While the chance of tornadoes is significantly lower in the winter than the spring, it’s important to stay prepared for any contingency.

Smartphones and other portable devices have proven to be important tools during spring storm seasons, and they continue to do so all year long. There are plenty of apps available to help during storm season.

One of the most powerful and comprehensive is RadarScope, an app popular with meteorologists. RadarScope is available in a free version, which contains most of the apps features, and a Pro version, which costs $10 per year and provides added forecasting tools.

While RadarScope has powerful tools for forecasters, it’s easy to navigate and can be used by anyone. It also includes weather alerts that will sound if a watch or warning is issued in a chosen area.

WeatherUnderground has another app that can help in a stormy situation. Called Storm, the app is similar to RadarScope, though it lacks some of the radars, such as the dual polarization tools. The Storm app is free, but includes ads. An ad-free subscription is available for $1.99 per year.

Melissa L. Jones is a trained storm spotter, photographer and technology review columnist. Her column, “Tech Spotlight,” appears every Monday in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper.

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Keep The Stuff You Love Safe

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Question.

If you could keep your friends and neighbors from losing the things they love most in the next hurricane or tornado, would you do it?

Well the good news is, now you can. And it only takes the click of a mouse.

Here’s how.

Now that hurricane season and tornado season are here, I started thinking about the news coverage of Hurricane Sandy.

There was this one woman that I’ll never forget. Her name was Phyllis.

The worst part is, the pain she felt over that destroyed photo was absolutely preventable.

We’ve been through more than a few disasters ourselves, including an earthquake and an airplane crashing into our neighborhood. In fact that’s the reason we wrote “Get Your Stuff Together”.

But the other day when I thought about Phyllis, I knew I had to do something more. Something else that will keep people from having to experience that kind of pain.

Not just one family at a time, but hundreds.

So here’s the plan. There’s something we can all do, right now, to prevent pain with just one click.

We just negotiated a special discount on “Get Your Stuff Together” for everyone who wants to buy 10 or more copies of the book. It doesn’t matter whether it’s for your church, your business, your Air Force base, your kid’s school, service organization or your Little League team.

Just let us know how many copies your group, company or organization wants, and we’ll get the books to you ASAP. Are you ready, because here comes the link you need to click to make it all happen.

Click here https://www.createspace.com/3823528 to order your copies directly from our publisher’s website. Just make sure you enter coupon code: BWXNWPZ7 to get your discount.

Or if you want us to order them for you, email us at webmaster1 at nokep.org, let us know how many copies you want, and we’ll take it from there.

So what do you think? Are you ready to help the families in your community stay safer this hurricane and tornado season?

All it takes is One Click.

More Amazing Things You Can Do In 5 Minutes Or Less

The Book Inspired By The Blog. The Backup Plan 3.0

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Updated 3/23/2021

If you and your family had to evacuate your home because of a tornado, an earthquake or wildfire, where would you go?

There’s a lot to consider. “Location A is close enough to home to check on the house if we had to, but what if the entire city is affected? But if we went to Location B, how would I ever get to work?”

Is your head hurting yet?

Not to worry. A – That’s exactly why we want you to go through this exercise now and not when a firefighter is knocking at the door. And B – That’s also why we suggest that you choose three locations and opt for the one that fits your needs if an emergency ever rears its ugly head.

A great #EvacuationPlan has two objectives:

1) To figure out the best location for your evacuation

2) To help you gather your family and get you safely to your location

How To Choose The Perfect Locations

Location One: A location Near Your Home, that you can use if you cannot stay in your home, but the area around it is still safe and secure.

Location Two: A location Outside of Your Immediate Area, that you can use if you cannot stay in your area, but the cities around you are still safe and secure.