From Team4news

If you’re asked to evacuate your home, do you know what important things to take with you?

Action 4 News spoke to an insurance agent Wednesday night, who offered some good tips for evacuees in the event Hurricane Rita hits the Texas Coast.

"That’s a Texas-size storm," said Jaime Resendez, an Allstate Insurance agent in San Benito. "(It’s) a classic Texas-size storm."

Resendez said that he’s been keeping a close eye on Rita’s path.

But he’s also telling his clients what to do in case they have to evacuate their homes, as was the case for thousands in the New Orleans area, trying to flee from Hurricane Katrina.

"Basically, what we’re telling our customers is to make sure you prepare yourself," he said. "Make sure if you have to evacuate that you go ahead and take your financial documents, your insurance documents, bank documents.

Take your checkbooks with you. Make sure you take cash and your debit cards."

Resendez said that people should keep all of those documents in a water-proof file or container.

Another important tip is to take a quick inventory of the items in your home that can be replaced by your insurance company.

"Let me tell you what’s really important," he said. "What would really be good is for you to take pictures of your contents. Because when a disaster happens, it’s hard to remember what you had."

Resendez said that taking pictures or using a video camera is good way to record all of things in your home that you can’t take with you.

It will also save you a lot of time later in case you have to come up with a list of items you’ve lost.

But remember to take those items with your insurance can’t replace, such family heirlooms, pictures and keepsakes.