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| Power Outage map for part of Ottawa retrieved 23 Sep 2018 14h45. |
As some of you might be aware, on Friday, September 21st, 2018, the Ottawa region was hit with not just one but two tornadoes so this post really hits home for me. I was lucky enough to not be on the path of the twisters but the winds and rains around me were intense. However, I live in one of the areas in Ottawa that were the hardest hit by the power outage and without electricity or running water (no power, no working pumps in my building to get the water up 20+ floors) I had to leave my place and take shelter with family.
I know we all make backups of our important digital information1 but have you ever thought about if you can get to that information after a disaster whether it be flood, fire, power outage, or a combination thereof?
Here are a few suggestions...
1. Backup and backup often.
2. Store at least one backup some distance from where you live. Some possible ideas include:
- Give it to a fellow genealogist to hold for you
- Give it to a family member
- Put it in a safety deposit box
- Save it to an Internet cloud service
3. Test your backups. Do you know how to get the information back on to your old or new computer?
I do #1 and #3 often but I seem to constantly fail on #2. However, over the next week or so I plan to rectify that situation!
This reminder just doesn't apply to copies of your digital data. For those with binders of genealogical and family history information have you thought about how to protect and preserve your information when disaster strikes?
Backup
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1. You do, don't you? If not, stop reading this right now and make a backup! Really, do it now!
Glad you weren't in the direct path! And sage advice about backing up...I carry my back up drive in my purse and have another I keep at work + cloud back up as well... I lived in the area of Ottawa you refer to for many, many years...
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