A person can live quite some time without any food but only a few days without water. In most emergencies water quickly becomes a precious commodity.
So how long can you drink if your usual water supply is cut off?
Here are some tips on securing a water supply in an emergency.
Store it
Storing water is your first option when it comes to emergency preparedness.
You can go several routes on this depending on your available storage space.
You can get food grade drums and fill them with water and store them in your garage. A fellow in my church during the Y2K build up bought a 250 gallon poly stock tank and filled it up just in case.
You can by water by the gallon at the store. Be sure and by the heavy duty better grade plastic bottles as the cheap milkjug type will degrade and start leaking after a year or so.
You can also buy a couple cases of single serve bottles and stash them under your bed.
How much you store is up to you. You will need to decide how much you plan on using. I have seen recommendations from "experts" all over the place. Do some research and decide how much you want to store for each person. I would recommend One gallon per person per day.
Another storage device to consider is a water bob. A water bob is a plastic bladder that fits into your bathtub that you fill with water at the first sign of an emergency.
If all else fails fill your bathtubs before you lose water pressure.
Back it up
If you live in the country you can get hand pumps on line that will fit onto your well to work in an emergency.
Better yet Drill a second well somewhere on your property.
This old house we live in has an old cistern that collected rain water.
You can do the same thing with rain barrels hooked to your downspouts.
Filter it
Get a water filter.
There are tons of different kinds and types of filters that come in handy for preppers.
- Aquamira make an inexpensive straw type filter that every prepper should have on hand since they are so affordable.
- NDur make a canteen filter that will come in handy for people in the woods
- Big Berkey make gravity fed filters where you dump the water in the top and get clean water out the bottom.
- Katadyn makes a wide variety of filters to fit almost any need.
We use a berkey here on the farm and like it a lot. When we lost power for 10 days a few years ago in an ice storm I filtered roof run off with it with no problems.
You can make your own filter... Get a cartridge at your local hardware store and use PVC pipe to build a system where you pour the water in the top and clean water comes out the bottom.
A note on filters...They will last longer if you pre-filter dirty water through several layers of cloth to remove the bigger stuff that will plug the filter quickly.
Water is important to your survival, plan now where you will get it if you need it.
Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy
No comments:
Post a Comment