Type Black Friday sale into any browser now and watch the deals pop up, November has become one long sale. After spending a week in the storm-ravaged West North Carolina last monththe holiday season looks different this year through my lens. There are still many ways to send help and Cape Codders continue to send supplies and even personnel to help residents on the long road to recovery. Don’t let this help fade as the holiday lights brighten.

While walking the streets of Canton, North Carolina on October 4, I encountered a thick layer of mud covering Most of the town is carried there by the Pigeon River which runs through the middle of the industrial town. The town is no stranger to difficulties, the paper mill there was closed and the river had flooded much of the town three years earlier when Tropical Storm Fred caused a flood which, at the time, was described as a “once-in-a-lifetime storm”.

So, when Helene visited him, the city was still recovering. It had been a week since the storm and residents were in their yards taking inventory and piling up debris to be removed during our visit. Reed Street resident Donna Rymer was emptying her basement into scrap and toss piles. Her niece had gone through all the photo albums and collected as many photos as possible that were drying in the hot afternoon. Rymer is a scrapbooker and lost a “shed” full of supplies that overturned in floodwaters and floated into the street.

When disaster strikes, a priceless possession is often lost to history: family photos. It was strange to look at piles of debris and see photos popping out, torn, mutilated and covered in mud. Visual stories have been washed away. Some of the photos recovered were transferred to an Instagram account “Photos d’Hélène” aimed at reuniting the victims with souvenir photos.

This holiday season, the best gift will take some time to give, but shouldn’t cost much, if anything at all. Sit back on cold November nights and become a photo editor. Find your most precious photo memories and simply make digital copies on your mobile phone. First, upload them to an online cloud storage service, then, using small USB drives, make multiple backup copies and store them offsite or even mail them to your loved ones. Finally, as a reward for your photo editing tasks, make a few prints and display them as holiday displays, knowing that your memories are safe.

This article was originally published on Cape Cod Times: Photo Session: Take the time to save your photo memories