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When it comes to flooding at a hospital or business, flood damaged documents are a real headache. But even more serious are flood damaged X-rays, which can contain irreplaceable medical information. To be sure, today’s X-rays are usually stored electronically as well as physically. Older X-rays, however – especially in smaller towns and more rural areas with limited health IT budgets – may still be available only as physical copies.

According to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 1,000 tornadoes occur on average each year in the United States. This is a higher figure than most would think because many of these reported tornadoes are small ones that are barely mentioned on the news. However, even a small tornado can cause serious damage to your business or office building.

Devastating flooding is an act of nature that can’t be avoided and can result in losses that total millions of dollars. This is especially true for libraries and similar institutions, which often have much more to lose than other organizations in the event of a flood, as demonstrated by the damaged books and other losses incurred when the Louisville Free Public Library in Louisville, Ky., experienced the unimaginable in August 2009.

Hurricane season has officially begun, which means it’s time for companies in affected areas to revisit their disaster recovery plans. If a company’s office location makes it vulnerable to a possible storm surge, these plans will highlight in detail what actions the staff should take, in addition to covering the specifics of how sensitive and important documents will be protected and retrieved after the disaster – usually with the help of a document restoration firm.

It’s interesting that amid all of the chatter about the world ending in 2012, the rate of natural disasters on our planet has noticeably increased. According to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, there were 385 such disasters from 2000-2009 – a 67 percent increase over the previous decade, and a 233 percent increase over the 1980s.