Emergency Document Storage

Page Updated on July 28, 2007

Important documents should be stored in a waterproof, fireproof box. Ideally the box should be portable, so you can take it with you if you must evacuate.

The box should contain

• Birth certificates
• Death certificates
• Marriage certificates
• Divorce certificates
• Military discharge papers
• Immunization records
• Passports (since they cost so much to replace)
• Financial inventory
• Home inventory
• Updated address and phone directory of all of your friends, neighbors, members of your emergency survival community, and family
• Titles to property
• Stock certificates
• Bonds
• Certificates of deposit
• Pension plan records
• Trust documents
• Copy of your will (You can put your original will in your fireproof box if the key is available for your survivors to get into the box. However, never put your original will in a safe deposit box. Upon your death, your safety deposit box may be sealed, making it impossible for the original, legal will to be read an executed without a struggle. Instead, have your lawyer keep the original, put it in a fireproof box, or find some other protective means to store your will that will not make the execution of the will difficult.)
• Letter of last instruction
• Legal documents / contracts / etc.