How I am Preparing for Natural Phenomena
Part 2 - Safeguarding Valuables With a Home Inventory

This is the second in a series of three articles on preparing for the occurrance of natural phenomena, so as to survive them well and have them be opportunities for constructive change rather than disasters.

Being a California girl, I was unprepared for my first hurricane after moving to the Gulf Coast of Florida. There was a moment when we were taping "x"'s on our windows (to keep them from shattering when they break) and I realized that if those seventeen feet of windows in my office break in the hurricane, all my twenty-plus years of research would simply get blown away.

As I was watching the hurricane approach on the television radar, I quickly began to think about what was most valuable, what would be the biggest irreplaceable loss if I lost everything? And I realized that it was too late to pack up all the books I had spent years collecting and make a backup of all the computer files of my as-yet-unpublished writing. I could get another desk, but what about 15 years of journals I had kept? All I could do was hope for the best with that hurricane. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for the people of Punta Gorda, the hurricane veered a bit east and hit land before it reached my little peninsula.

I went and did hurricane relief work and saw first-hand how a dead-on hit by a hurricane levels everything. People had nothing left. That could have been me standing in line for a bottle of water.

I've learned that what makes a natural phenomenon a disaster is lack of preparation. Disasters are the result of putting one's head in the sand like an ostrich and saying, "This won't happen to me." And so I confronted this possibility that I could lose everything and began to consider both how I could protect the irreplacables and be ready to make a new home, if necessary.

Protecting the Irreplacables

When Larry and I were first married, my father hand-carried two beautiful etched crystal glasses all the way from Romania for us to use for our wedding toast. They sat in a box on his lap in the plane all the way from eastern Europe to California. Larry and I would drink from these glasses every year on our anniversary. One year, he accidentally broke one. After my initial upset, I realized that now we could both drink from the remaining glass, which was even more romantic.

After that experience, I couldn't resist purchasing a small poster with this quotation written in calligraphy:

One day some people came to the master and asked: How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness and death?

The master held up a glass and said: Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table.

I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.

-- The Venerable Achaan Chah Subato

I framed this quote and it hangs on the wall in my dining room, right next to my collection of fragile stemmed glasses that I won't be able to take with me if I have to evacuate for a hurricane.

As much as I love and enjoy the beautiful things I have, they are just physical things. I've given up or lost things that I have loved in the past, and they were always replaced by other things, equally if not more special. So I really enjoy them now while I have them.

After hurricane Katrina, I realized that my biggest loss would be all the information I had collected over the years. But then I saw that while I had collected a lot of information, I hadn't done anything with a lot of it. I began to plan to go through all the books and files I have and actually extract the valuable information and write about it. These files could then go on a computer disk that I could carry anywhere and put in any computer, and a lot of that information could go on my website. So for me, looking at a potential loss actually spurred me to get to work!

I don't need the books or the journals, what I need is the ideas and information they contain. I can condense and carry that with me in my mind and heart and on a little computer disk. I have almost 2000 books. I'm in the process of making a list of the books I would really want to replace should I lose them all, and taking the information of value to me from the rest.

Considering potential loss has also changed the way I organize things and store them. I now have all my current writing projects in pocket folders in a single box I can just pick up and carry with me if I need to, and all my valuable papers (passport, birth certificate, account numbers, etc) are already packaged in a waterproof plastic envelope. I know where things are and have a list of what to bring or place in a safe place if I need to.

Replacing What Was Lost

The other lesson I learned from Katrina and the citizens of New Orleans was while I was somewhat prepared to evacuate, I wasn't at all prepared to come home and rebuild my life.

The one thing that is needed most to rebuild a life is cash. While we can rely somewhat on the kindness of others, after the initial emergency, we still need to repair or rebuild our homes and fill them with furnishings, clothing, and everything else that needs to be replaced.

Homeowner's insurance should cover this. I've learned, however, that insurance companies won't pay claims unless they have documentation of your possessions.

And so it's important to take a home inventory. I had completely left this out of my planning! It's a daunting task, but if you don't take a home inventory, you won't get the full amount you need to replace the quality of the items you have. I checked my homeowner's insurance policy to make sure I had full replacement value that would allow me to replace the lost items with equivalent new ones. If you don't have this, the insurance company will give you enough money to replace your used items with other used items.

I've only just started to take my home inventory, but already it's really made me examine the importance of things I have around my house. How important is it to continue to have an item occupy space or be stored if it's not important enough for me to document it for replacement? What a great reason to reduce clutter and put items you are not using back into circulation!

I started working on my home inventory by looking up guidelines on the internet. I found very easy-to-use, free ""Know Your Stuff" software (for both PC and Mac) provided by the Insurance Information Institute. While you can create a home inventory by hand, I found the program prompted me to collect the information needed, like item name and model number, serial number, where I bought it, the date and purchase price, and a photo. A lot of it I didn't know, like the brand of my television and how much it cost. I'm having to piece all this together, but it will be worth it if I need it one day.

Hurricane season will be over soon, but I'll continue to assemble my home inventory over the winter, bit by bit until it's done. It will also serve to provide a structure where I can place information on new purchases, so as to keep my inventory up to date.

The Hurricane Fund

My grandmother taught me to always put a little money away for a rainy day, but she never said anything about hurricanes. My husband and I have started a "Hurricane Fund" that we may never use, but will be there should we need it. Just in case the insurance company is slow to pay or doesn't pay enough, we'll be able to take care of ourselves.

Life Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan

Businesses have something called a "Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan." It's a document they make about how they do business and what they would need to do to get back up and running should a disaster strike. After all, to a business, down time means down profits.

This made sense to me. If I lose everything, I want to make it as easy as possible to get my life back on track as quickly as possible. I haven't started to write this plan yet, but I've already started think about what I would need, for example, to get my office back together so I could start up my home-based business again. It would be a lot easier to have some instructions to follow, rather than having to figure it all out on the spot, while under stress. Better to make a shopping list now and make note of who I might need to order what from, phone numbers I may need to call.

Sustaining the organism of my life

Each of our lives is a living organism unto itself. The more we are aware of what we need to sustain or restore our lives, the easier it will be to do so--if and when we need to. It may be difficult to look at and consider such a loss, but it will be even more difficult to recover if we don't.

When I was a Girl Scout, our motto was "Be Prepared." The more prepared I become for the occasional surprises that nature is sure to bring, the less I am worried about them. If something happens, it happens. My life will go on.