Horrible floods in Tennessee and Mississippi have been in the news for several weeks now. Water levels crested 10 feet over what is considered flood level! Thousands were evacuated and hundreds of others were rescued from their homes — some plucked from rooftops. The area that seems to have gotten the most press has been Nashville.

This last week, while I was in Milwaukee speaking at a national meeting for art conservation I got a phone call from a Nashville frame and photo shop. While they had taken positive action to deal with the overwhelming mess, we had a very productive discussion about mold and reprocessing photos at a local professional photo lab

What you may not have heard about if that not only was flooding a problem but several areas also had to deal with tornadoes. I can't imagine the added mess of a tornado in the middle of a flood. It must have seemed like the end of the world for some.

Tennessee state's Army National Guard was called in to help and dozens of vehicles and personnel were put to work rescuing stranded residents. Nashville Mayor Karl Dean reported more than 600 water rescues in the city alone. One building in east Nashville was caught on video floating down Interstate 24 and passing stranded vehicles. The video was quickly uploaded to YouTube.

Now that the water is subsiding, the clean up is at hand. It will be at least several days until the most evident damage can be assessed and many weeks or month will be required to know the real depth of the problems created.

What do the woes of these folks suggest to you? Can the message, "Be Prepared" be said any clearer? So, what can you do?

1. This photo shows a man evacuating but able to save his stuff. If his papers, books, scrapbooks, photo albums etc had been in cardboard boxes, they would have been ruined and gone. Put your important stuff in plastic bins.

2. Keep your storage boxes of important items off the floor.

3. Keep a copy of important papers in another location (city) or consider online storage services. If everything is lost in a flood, fire or wind, you will have back up. This is could be super valuable to a small business.

For more tips, free downloads and a copy of How To Save Your Stuff From A Disaster, got to www.saveyourstuff.com