I came up with this idea in a short workshop for preparedness in home emergencies.

here is my tip


It is recommended that for emergencies you have photo's of people you live with on hand, i.e. in your disaster kit that you take with you when you evacuate. This way if someone like a kid is missing the search team can see what your relatives look like. You should also have copies of important documents. May be you can scan birth certificates or other ID documents but then you risk losing this to data thieves but likewise you could lose paper copies too. So everything is digital and might fit on a cheap these days 8 MB or 16 MB compact flash card. These might work in any camera you find at the disaster reception centre so you can access them. You don't really need a digital camera to make this compact flash card as there are 20 dollar card readers you can transfer the data with and then test it in someone else's camera and you are good to go.