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When I was a 12, I met a family from Sugar City, Idaho, who had survived the Teton damn break and resultant flooding. They came to Utah for a number of months to live with their cousins, who lived on my street. Hearing the things that caused the most stress and concern was a good life lesson.

When people think of natural disasters—floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, anything that can cause serious physical damage—the first concern is always for human life. The next consideration is usually those things that are irreplaceable, such as pets, photos, or rare items.

Back in the day, protecting photos and other valuables was an enormous chore. The only way to manage it would be to have duplicates made of all media, and then ship them all offsite to some other storage facility. That might be the house of a friend or relative. The point being that the chances of having two life-altering disasters in two distant locations, simultaneously, was next to nothing. Even if your own house was incinerated into a heap of rubble, your sister's house in Cincinnati would probably still be intact. (And, really, if it wasn't, then old photos would probably be the least of our worries!)

Today, this kind of photo protection is laughably easy. Our photos are already digitized and sitting on our hard drives. We must simply click a few buttons to have the entire mass uploaded to a secure offsite. Such archival backup storage is available at very affordable rates.

If you have anything in your home that is irreplaceable, make sure it is protected. If the unthinkable happens, you'll have peace of mind knowing that the rebuilding process is well within reach.

Alison Moore Smith is a 61-year-old entrepreneur who graduated from BYU in 1987. She has been (very happily) married to Samuel M. Smith for 40 years. They are parents of six incredible children and grandparents to two astounding grandsons. She is the author of The 7 Success Habits of Homeschoolers.