Create A Non Published Emergency Family Website

Ok so your home has been destroyed in a natural disaster! can you prove who you are? that you are married? or that you even owned a home?

These were some of the questions that many of the residents of New Orleans had to deal with when all of their personal possessions and private information were quickly destroyed as a result of Hurricane Katrina.  When the levees broke and the homes were flooded many residents didn’t have time to gather up their personal possessions and information, they barely had enough time to escape with their lives. 

When I was watching the reports of people having difficulty accessing information about their insurance, account numbers and policy declarations, and other persoanal identifiers, it became clear to me that people needed to store much of this information in a safe place away from the effected area. It needed to be a place that could be accessed at a time when it was most needed, such as after a natural disaster, that the idea hit me! Store that information on a personal inter-family use only (password protected) website.  This website would have insurance policy numbers and account information as well as information about the individual family members, including photos and family mortgage information and bank account information.

It would be great to be able to go to a public library for example and use a public computer to access your own personal information including insurance policies and contact numbers, even have a bulletin board on the website that your family members could post to in the case of evacuation to let every family member know your location and your circumstance.

During a natural disaster, there is alot of confusion, and sometimes family members can get separated and wind up in different shelters.  Having one place on the internet that each family member can access will be a great help to yourselves as well as the authorities that are trying to re-unite family members.

In my website, I chose a password that everyone in the family knows, I made sure that they knew the URL address of the family website and I included links to emergency services.  Also, I scanned current insurance documents and posted them to the site as well so I could always prove the coverage that I had prior to the natural disaster.

It is a clear advantage if you teach your young children to memorize  their social security numbers, home address, city, county and state and telephone numbers as well as the full names of their parents as soon as they are able to do so.

A website  that can contain the features that I suggest here, is probably not free, but for 25.00 a month or so, its a valuable resource that can’t be understated.  Make sure that any information that you post to the website is password protected making sure that your information always remains safe and ready for you to use.

An emergency website that includes insurance information, bank records, deeds or mortgage information, and a means for the family members to communicate is a valuable resource at a time of great need and can go along way to providing some comfort that comes from being prepared with your family information at a moments notice.