The original post: /r/lifeprotips by /u/arianebx on 2024-04-28 01:04:27.

Thinking of this as I read about the incredibly sad situation in the Great Plains as tornadoes destroy entire communities…

The below applies to anyone, not just folks in tornado-prone areas: floods, water damage, fires, even earthquakes (triggering fires): there is a non-zero chance of major damage to your home in your lifetime.

You may have insurance, and this is great. It will, within reason, replace all the ‘things’.

Hopefully, your computer is backed in the cloud – it’s a kind of insurance – and it’s very necessary.

But what you may lose are rare family pictures or old videos that are only on paper and film.

So, as a present to yourself and your family:

• Get yourself a photo scanner, which will make bulk scanning faster. You can even plan to resell it when you’re done with your scanning project

OR

• Buy yourself the service of companies who will take your paper photos and videos and do the scans for you.

You can use this opportunity to tag the images as you digitize them and turn all these paper pictures and films into a true digital archive for yourself, but this is certainly more work. But you don’t have to do this: at a minimum, scanning the photos and just depositing them on a cloud somewhere is enough to be your ‘memory insurance’. Hopefully, your house is never destroyed and you never have to leverage that pile of digitized pictures.

But should it happen, your precious family memories – at least – are safe.

Like any disaster-preparedness plan, this plan was best done yesterday.

Thinking of the good folks currently affected by the tornadoes…