Emergency plan: What to grab on the way out Emergency plan: What to grab on the way out (October 19, 2005)

Don't forget important legal and financial document, attorney advises

By Arthur Nielsen

Special to the Almanac

Scenes from New Orleans have motivated many of us to think about how well our families are prepared to respond to an emergency.

As bad as Hurricane Katrina was, weather forecasting gave the city a couple days' notice of its approach, which enabled much of the city's population to evacuate ahead of time. Still, that was not enough time for people who lacked the resources or physical ability to move out quickly on their own.

Here in Northern California, we may have only minutes or even seconds to think about an escape plan in the event of an earthquake, wildfire or terrorist attack.

Imagine being at home, in the path of an approaching wildfire, and hearing an order to evacuate in 15 minutes. What would you grab on your way out of the house?

Your first priority should be your family, of course. Your mind might also leap immediately to things like family photo albums or a laptop computer.

But unless you plan for the worst beforehand, you may not have the presence of mind to locate all of your family's important legal and financial documents, many of which would be difficult or impossible to replace.

These documents would be essential to your effort to put your family's life back together after an event that might, like Katrina and the New Orleans flood, completely destroy entire neighborhoods.

Here are the papers in your life that you should be able to grab and run with at a moment's notice:

** Identification Documents: Birth certificates, marriage license, passports, military documents. A list containing the name, age and a recent photograph of each person living in your house. Naturalization documents for citizens born outside the United States.

** Estate planning documents: will, living trust, power of attorney, advance health care directive.

** Contact information for all medical providers, copies of prescriptions, lists of allergies.

** Your neighborhood's emergency response procedures and contacts.

** All insurance policies (especially declaration of coverage pages).

** Stock and bond certificates, savings bonds.

** Real estate deeds and mortgages, including discharge records for any mortgages that have been retired.

** Photocopies of titles to vehicles.

** A copy of your tax returns for the last three years.

** All account numbers and locations of bank and investment accounts.

** Primary and contingent beneficiary designation forms for retirement accounts like IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities, life insurance plans and other employee benefit programs.

** A photocopy of the front and back of your credit cards, social security card, and insurance cards.

** Information about all creditors to whom you are making regular payments.

**A videotape or collection of photographs of the interior of your house, with particular attention to furniture, appliances, computers, fixtures, heirlooms, artwork. This will be extremely valuable if you need to provide evidence of loss for an insurance claim.

** A backup disk with any important records, documents or photos stored on your computer's hard drive.

** A list of all computer logins and passwords.

** Safe deposit box key and location.

Keep these somewhere in the house where you can reach them quickly (and keep them convenient for your normal day-to-day reference). A waterproof binder is also a good idea. This collection of documents will probably be no bigger than the size of a small city's phone book, and should easily fit in your evacuation backpack.

One extra precaution is to keep valuables and originals of important documents in a safe deposit box. Also consider making photocopies of important documents and leaving them in a sealed envelope with a trusted relative in a different part of the country.

And keep in mind: No one ever emerged from a disaster with the feeling of being too prepared.

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