Scanners Are Relatively Inexpensive . . . External Hard Drives, Too

Amazon should send these people some hardware:

Like any doting father, Joshua Peltz captured every one of his firstborn’s “firsts” on film.

Adalind’s first steps. Adalind’s first New York City pizza. Adalind’s first kiss with Mom.

Now the 39-year-old Charlotte, NC, man fears the cherished footage – stored on his cellphone — is somewhere on the bottom of the Hudson River.

He had to leave the device behind during the scramble to escape miracle US Airways Flight 1549, which crash-landed in the icy Hudson River Jan. 15 after both engines lost power upon colliding with a flock of geese.

“I’m very upset, disappointed and frustrated,” said Peltz, who was never able to make backup copies of the 40 videos of his daughter, now 2.

“It was important to me. It was important to my entire family.”

Peltz is among a slew of passengers forced to leave behind keepsakes in the chaos, including love letters and lucky charms.

They are items the airline’s offer of $5,000 per passenger cannot replace, and many fear that when their luggage is returned the water damage will have already taken too big a toll on the treasures.

Vallie Collins, of Maryville, Tenn., another of the 150 passengers rescued, is missing a stack of love letters her husband wrote when he was courting her.

The 37-year-old mother of three would read the missives, which she had tucked in a binder, whenever she traveled to reminisce about the days a decade ago when her husband, Steve, wooed her.

“He wrote that he would look forward to our time together and our future and all that mushy kind of stuff,” Collins said.