Keep your Memories Safe this Summer

This is a reminder to everyone who lives in bushfire zones (including those on city fringes) to not only prepare your bushfire plan and your property, but make sure you back up your treasured digital photos to an offsite storage facility or onto a separate portable hard disk, and get all your treasures and photos off your property before summer really hits.

I have a storage unit down in the burbs, but relatives or friends may be able to help.

I heard one such story of a family who got out of Kinglake safely, but lost the computer and backup disk with all their kids photos, as they did not have time to go back to the house. They are trying to get hi-res files back from Facebook, but are not having much luck.

During last year’s fires, I had to evacuate. I had everything here… not usually the case, but I had been so busy with work and study (not to mention being a mum of a 2yo). And when the call came out that a fire was in the area, I was on my own and had no idea what to grab first. I did the best I could and packed as many boxes into the car as would fit, but my brain was completely scatty with the stress, and I could not think clearly what needed to go, or where it was. As it turns out, the house was safe, but I did leave two boxes of my travel slides behind, including those from a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Antarctica, as well as hubby’s grandfather’s war medals. We would have been absolutely devastated to have lost either.

If you need to leave your home, even when there is not a fire in the area, it is far less stressful to know that anything that you would be devastated to lose is simply not there. Then you can concentrate on preparing the house, packing spare clothes and rounding up kids and animals. As they say, the rest is just stuff… and stuff is insured (or should be).

Hopefully, none of this will be necessary and we will come through this summer without the terrible tragedy of last year (fingers, toes and everything else crossed).

Hope you all remain safe during the upcoming summer.