Also Lost on Doomsday

It's hard being away from my home. My files are backed up, but all my handwritten notes, bills, documents and articles are sitting on my desk. Even when we were allowed in on Monday, Holly and I weren't thinking about documents. There was a horrendous stench emanating from the refrigerator; step No. 1 was to clear that out. We had to bury food products and human waste. The apartment was dark and damp, and the batteries in my flashlight died. It wasn't a place one wanted to be in for too long, and we were under pressure from a 6 p.m. curfew -- the local sheriff said that anyone on the streets after that time would be considered a looter.

My accounting system is a crucial element of my writing business -- I need to find out who owes me how much and when the bills are due. But that's all locked in my hard drive, and I can't buy a new monitor and peripherals because I'm scared to spend any money. I am living day by day and have no idea what I'll be doing next week, let alone next month when more bills are due. As a rough estimate, I'd say that I am waiting on $3,500 in receivables, wondering if I will ever see it.

I was supposed to go to Sri Lanka in a few weeks to write some travel articles, but that is the least of my concerns at the moment. Anyway, my passport, along with my birth certificate, is back home.

Some people barely escaped with their lives -- when floodwaters are rising by the minute, houses are catching fire and looters are banging down the door, the last thing one thinks about is grabbing the title to the house or insurance documents. I interviewed a man who escaped the rising floodwaters with nothing more than his driver's license. He has no cash, no credit cards and no access to his bank account. He had been employed in the medical industry for more than 30 years but is now virtually starting from scratch.

Staying at my sister's condo are my mother, my father, my stepmother, my sister, her boyfriend, a roommate, two cats and one dog. Holly recently went to her parents' vacation house in Arkansas, where I plan to meet her soon.

Everyone fights over the computers and the phones because we all have financial business to take care of. I am writing this on a borrowed laptop in a corner of a room that I have cleared.

It's been two weeks since I left my home on a moment's notice. Whenever life resumes some sense of normalcy and no matter where I am living, my outlook on personal finance and preparation for disasters will have changed profoundly. Some who have never experienced this may call me paranoid. I will make copies of documents and mail them to relatives in other states for safekeeping. I will stuff them in a hidden compartment in my vehicle. I may even tattoo my account numbers on my inner thigh, just in case.

Don't feel sorry for me -- I'm one of the lucky ones. My family and I are alive and safe and I will eventually get back on my feet. But the financial loss will take its toll. Over the course of one nasty night, by a terrible act of nature, I have been set back years. All those dreams and the things I have been working for -- the wedding, the house, the financial security -- are just going to have to wait a little bit longer.