Last-minute disaster preparation

Updated 2:52 p.m. ET on Aug. 28, 2012

This post comes from Stacy Johnson at partner site Money Talks News. 

For those of you in the path of Hurricane Isaac, take heart. As a long-time resident of South Florida, I've traveled this road before, and I probably will again before the season is over.

Preparing for a hurricane is a frantic time, and the most important thing you can do now is make sure you and yours are out of harm's way. But if you have a spare minute or two, you should also protect your financial life to the best of your ability.

Here's how to get the most results from the fewest minutes: 

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• Get important originals out of harm's way. Put difficult-to-replace​ papers in a waterproof container, such as Tupperware, or even a baggie. Keep it where you can grab it and run. You first priority should be documents with raised seals and original signatures: car titles, passports, your home deed -- you get the idea.
• Grab your camcorder. Shoot video of everything in your house, and I mean everything. Open drawers and cabinets. Go in closets. This is your last-minute inventory of everything you own: If you need to file an insurance claim, it's going to be the smartest thing you've ever done. If you can send that video digitally to a friend far away, great. If you can't, make sure it stays with you. 
• Get cash. It's hard to understand what life without electricity is like. Just ask any Floridian who has done it for weeks; it's not pretty. When there's no electricity, there's no ATM and the credit card machines at the store may not work.
• Get gas. There's also no gas without electricity. This is most useful if you have a generator, because without working traffic lights, you won't be doing a lot of driving.
• If you have time, scan important papers and store them online. This includes just about everything: deeds, titles, wills, birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce and adoption papers, insurance policies, mortgage documents, Social Security cards, driver's licenses, passports, tax returns. While digital copies of some of these things won't replace the originals -- passports and driver's licenses, for example -- at least you'll have a copy of the numbers on them. Store the digital copies in cyberspace, where natural disasters can't find them. If scanning stacks of paper seems too onerous or time-consuming -- your mortgage or insurance policies, for example -- just scan the first page. It's better than nothing.
• If you have time, get a second cellphone. Go to the cellphone store and get the cheapest possible phone that will hold your SIM card. Charge it and put it in your waterproof container. This serves two purposes: You have a fully charged backup phone if yours runs out of juice, and you have a replacement if your primary phone gets wet. 
• Put your insurance company's phone number in your cellphone. As soon as cell service resumes, your first calls will be to your family and friends, but the next one should be to your insurance company. First come, first served.

That's the down-and-dirty of protecting your financial life. There are plenty of additional articles online with more details, and if you have time, you should check out some of them. But if you don't, do as many of the things above as you can. And if you're not in Isaac's path but know someone who is, forward this article to them.

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Also for those not in the path of this particular peril, remember: It's only a matter of time. Why not take a few minutes this weekend to prepare your own plan? It's definitely time well spent.

More from Money Talks News and MSN Money:

• 12 tips to disaster-proof your home and finances

• 7 more tips to prepare for a natural disaster

• What to do if you drop your cellphone in water

• Insurance for power outages
• Fake hurricanes test homes' strength
• What if you got hit by a bus?