Don't lose your important photos and documents in a storm

CINCINNATI - It’s been an active severe weather season, especially on March 2 when large tornadoes tore through parts of the Tri-State, leaving little left to salvage.

Regena List of Crittenden, Ky., was one of many folks who lost everything that day.

Her entire house was destroyed. Her family’s belongings were thrown about, including photos and documents which were ripped, damaged or lost.

“There’s pictures that there aren’t anymore of and you can’t duplicate, and you can’t find any place else," said List. “I know people like albums and those are fine, but when they’re gone, they’re gone.”

The great news is that List and her family were able to recover some things. She wants people to understand though, that this can happen to anyone, so don’t wait any longer to save your important information.

We talked to Don Hogle of Elan Technologies , on how to protect your important information. He offered step-by-step instructions:

1. Scan your pictures and documents
2. Store them locally, at home
3. Store them at a second location, such as an online cloud provider

“Local storage would be a jump drive, or hard drive, or a CD or DVD that would be burned which means created by the user. Cloud would be storage on the internet that you could also deposit information," Hogle said.

List said what she has recovered has now be put onto memory cards.

“Scan them…scan them to a memory card. I mean, we found some of those too, and they still work! And flash drives, they sill work…so I’m like tickled,” List said.

Don't Waste Your Money consumer reporter, John Matarese has some additional tips when it comes to saving those important photos and documents. 

He too agrees with online cloud storage, and at home, hard-drive storage, but he’s got a third option for extra protection.

“A good place for wedding albums, and irreplaceable valuables, is in a safety deposit box at a bank.  Their vaults are well protected,” Matarese said.

Click here to get a comparison of online cloud providers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_backup_services