Thursday, March 30, 2006

Disaster Preparedness Steps

This is some very sound advice for people preparing for a disaster. This evacuation kit is especially important, just don't let the information fall into the wrong hands:

Here are the kinds of things you may want to have ready to take with you, per the Happy Capitalist blog:
Cash
Key to your safety deposit box
Phone numbers for insurance agents, banks, attorneys, and financial advisors
Account numbers for bank, credit card, and investment accounts
Social Security numbers for all family members
Current backup of computer files
Last three years' worth of tax returns, both federal and state
Copies of the documents in your safety deposit box (insurance policies, wills, deeds to house and cars, and your house inventory)
Medical information, such as doctors' names and phone numbers, prescriptions, and immunization records
Phone numbers for family and friends
Photocopies of birth certificates, passports, marriage certificates, and powers of attorney


Actually you could probably put almost everything past the safe deposit box key onto one CD-rom since they are pretty much just lists of various things that can be put into a Word document and stuff that you can easily scan into PDFs. Even the computer files could probably be backed up on that CD as well depending on how many you have.

Or you could just put all that info on a 2 gig jump drive, bind it with about a $1000 in hundred dollar bills or gold bullion, and put the safe deposit key on the ring the drive comes with and leave it in some safe place.

Since I am a fantasy buff I would seal it in an air tight container and bury it in some secluded place in another state like a treasure chest. You could then memorize the GPS coordinates to the place you hide the items. Or you can have the coordinates designed into an elaborate custom tattoo. Too bad you can't construct an iron golem to guard the secluded place. Oh well you can't have everything.

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