I know how important this is. A few weeks before Katrina hit, I lost my home and my possessions in a house fire.  Preparation is key.

Here are a few tips I learned that you can pass along to your clients:

1. Invest in the right insurance with the right carrier. Yes, your clients can find bargain insurance. It may not be such a bargain when losses occur.
2. Take a video of the possessions of the house.  I kept receipts for large purchases.  However, I lost my entire medical library with a value of many thousands of dollars.  If I had only taken a picture of the bookshelves so I didn’t have to recreate the library from memory! 
3. You can offer your clients a central place to keep digital copies of important documents: passports, insurance cards, medical records, a list of medication, car titles, photos and other treasures. I was working on a book manuscript when the fire struck, and was grateful that I backed it up every day. 
4. Encourage your clients to create a family plan and put an out-of-area emergency contact in their smart phones.  Label the contact ICE— “In case of emergency.”
5. Remind clients of the importance of provisions: food and water for the entire family, including pets, prescriptions and first aid, flashlights, radios,  cash and a way to recharge computers/phones.  The car battery can be a surrogate power source. 
6. Keep at least a half of tank of gas in the car at all times. Some natural disasters do not have warning signs.
7. Consider investing in a back-up generator.  
8. Invest in fire extinguishers, carbon monoxide alarms and smoke alarms.  Know how to turn off the water and the gas into the house. 
9. Imagine what your life would be like if overnight you did not have ANYTHING.  No favorite mug or slippers, sewing kit, pen and paper. If a client sustains a loss, small things can make a difference.  
10. Remember that kids respond to losses differently than adults.  As my parenting educator put it, trauma is like “putting your kid’s brain through the blender.”  Recovery from a disaster teaches kids that we are resilient.?

Our thoughts and prayers go out to those in the path of Irma.