The best time to assemble your digital go-bag is on a quiet weekend with nothing forecast. The second-best time is the day you see a storm system named.
I have spent a lot of time over the last few years talking to families about what they wish they had done before a disaster, not after. The conversation almost always lands in the same place.
The physical go-bag, most people have. Water, flashlights, batteries, a few days of medication, a phone charger. FEMA and the Red Cross have done good work making sure that part of preparedness is in the public consciousness, and AARP, where I presented this week, has been a thoughtful voice on what it actually takes to get older adults ready for a hurricane.
The part that almost nobody has is the digital go-bag.
I mean the documents and information you would need if you had to evacuate in 30 minutes, end up at a shelter or a relative's house, and start filing claims, accessing accounts, or proving who you are without your filing cabinet, your home office, or the desk where you keep the important paperwork. The driver's license, the insurance declarations page, the photo of every room in your house that proves what you owned before the storm took it. The phone numbers, the prescription list, the deed.
When I talk to families who have been through a hurricane, a wildfire, a flood — the regret is almost never about the physical go-bag. It is about the document they could not find, the insurance policy number they could not remember, the photos of the living room they wish they had taken before the roof came off.
So here is what I want every family to have ready before the next storm warning. The good news is that it takes about an hour to assemble. The bad news is that almost nobody does it until it is too late.
Identity documents. Driver's licenses for every adult. Passports. Social Security cards. Birth certificates for every member of the household. Marriage certificates, adoption or custody paperwork, citizenship documents, military discharge papers (DD-214). A current photo of every family member, in case you get separated. If you have pets: vaccination records, microchip numbers, and a recent photo of each one.
Medical information. Health insurance cards, front and back. Medicare or Medicaid cards. A current list of every medication you take, the dosage, and the prescribing doctor. Allergy information for every family member. Vaccination records, especially for children. Names and phone numbers of every doctor, specialist, and pharmacy your family uses. Advance directives and healthcare proxies. If anyone in the household relies on medical equipment like a CPAP or oxygen concentrator, include the model numbers and the supplier's contact information.
Financial access. Photos of the front and back of every credit and debit card. Bank account and routing numbers. Investment and retirement account information. Mortgage or rental agreement. A current list of monthly bills with account numbers. Tax returns from the last two years. And, the one most people skip and most regret, the declarations page from every insurance policy you carry. Home, auto, life, flood, umbrella. A photo of that page tells your adjuster the policy number, the coverage limits, and the deductible. Without it, claims start a week later than they should.
Proof of what you own. This is the section that hurricane and wildfire survivors talk about most after the fact. Property deed or title. Vehicle titles and registrations. Photos of every room in your home, taken from the doorway, with closets and cabinets open. Photos or video of the exterior, including the roof, foundation, fences, and outbuildings. A list of high-value items with photos, model numbers, and approximate purchase dates. Receipts for major purchases when you can find them. Appraisals for anything that has been formally valued.
If you have not done the room-by-room documentation, the simplest version is to walk through your home with your phone, open every drawer and cabinet, narrate what is in each one, and let the camera roll. A 15-minute video can substantiate thousands of dollars of insurance claims later. I have heard this from families who did it and from families who wish they had.
Access to the things that matter. Phone numbers for the people you would need to reach: family, employers, schools, doctors, pet sitters, neighbors. Passwords or password manager access. A list of your account usernames if you do not use a password manager. The contact information for an out-of-state relative or friend everyone in the family can call to check in. Emergency contacts written down on paper, in case your phone is dead or lost. Spare keys for the house, the car, the safe deposit box. And the safe deposit box information itself: bank, branch, box number, where the key is.
A digital go-bag is only useful if you can get to it under stress, with poor cell service, possibly on a borrowed device, possibly in a hurry.
The wrong way to keep it together is the way most families do. A folder on a home computer you cannot access if the house is destroyed. Scanned PDFs in an email account you might or might not be able to log into from a stranger's phone. Paper copies in a fireproof box you do not have time to grab.
The right way to keep it together is in something you can access from any device, that does not depend on you remembering passwords under stress, that you can share with the people who need access if something happens to you.
That is exactly the problem we built Prisidio to solve. It is also why we have a step-by-step prepare page that walks you through what to add, in what order, and how to share access with the people you trust. Whether or not you use Prisidio is genuinely not the point of this article. The point is just to get it done before the next storm warning.
I have watched a lot of families try to reconstruct their lives in the weeks after a disaster. The ones who had their documents ready moved through claims in days. The ones who did not spent months.
The best time to assemble your digital go-bag is on a quiet weekend with nothing forecast. The second-best time is the day you see a storm system named.
The worst time is the day after.
If you want a starting point, we have a checklist version of this you can download. Save it, share it, send it to your parents or your adult children. If hurricane season is the reminder you needed, that is enough.
Stay safe out there.
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