What if you turned on the faucet and the water? That will never happen, right? Well, if the grid went to the municipal water supply would soon be discontinued. A grid of a power failure could against terrorist hackers or simply an overload of 14 August 2003 at the north-eastern United States that happen to 55 million Americans and Canadians are going on in darkness. A major economic collapse would be much worse, interfere with the transport and delivery of chemicals needed toWater treatment. Do not rely on bottled water is available - on the shelves are empty in a few hours of a crisis.
The good news is that you can very easily be autonomous. Although not everyone wants, this might be so be prepared to be able to take water from rivers and reservoirs and drink without fear, you can be sure they are willing to be very easy. However, it is important to understand what is the water that make you very sick, and what you can do.
Step 1: StartSave some 'of water
I have to buy jugs of water?
While you can purchase six gallon plastic jugs at Walmart for $ 10, which is not recommended. They cost much money and too difficult to move (as many as 6 gallon jug weighs about 50 kg.). Instead, rinse 2-liter pop bottles and use them. They are free and you do not even need a special "storage area" as you put them in the back of the cabinet, car or anywhere there is a limited space. The more often two gallonsfruit juice bottles are also great. While they seem popular on a lot of 'preparedness supply' websites, the blue 50 gallon water drums seem impractical for anyone without a dedicated survival retreat. If a hurricane is coming and you fear water may be interrupted, or just want a larger supply, there is an economical, hundred gallon bladder worth looking into called the WaterBob, which you set in your bathtub and fill. It is worth looking into building a bathtub sized box in your basement and putting one of these in for only .
Do NOT use gallon milk jugs, as they are a pain in the neck. The plastic is too thin and will degrade in a few months, and unlike a two liter bottle, if you drop it you will have a big mess.
How much should I store?
The rule of thumb is that you need to store a gallon per day per person to ensure a good supply for drinking, cooking and minimal sanitation (hand washing, dish washing and brushing teeth). This does not take into account bathing and laundry. Your water will go farther if you have some paper plates and cups and plastic utensils in your cupboard.
Step 2: Tap Your "Hidden" Sources of Water
By opening your upstairs faucets, you can get whatever water is in the pipes from the downstairs faucets - it will simply drain out. Also, your hot water heater contains about 40 gallons of water! (Hopefully, you are in the habit of draining a gallon each month to drain off the rust or sediment, or you have a newer hot water heater.)
Remember that your toilet tanks have a couple of gallons of water as well. This is 'clean' water that has not flowed down into the bowl yet, but it should be treated as suspect water and purified (see below).
Step 3: Know How to Purify Suspect Water
Having the supplies and know-how to get water from a retention pond in your subdivision, or even a dirty river or lake, and make it totally safe and drinkable gives you a great feeling of security. That feeling is even better if you've ever had a waterborne illness like 'Montezuma's Revenge' or Giardia with its explosive diarrhea (yes, that is actually a term from a medical book!).
There are three 'levels' of purifying your water that you should understand. That is not to say that you must take three steps, but rather there are three types of contaminants that you need to remove from your water to make it absolutely safe and drinkable.
Level 1: Particulate Matter - "Scum and Floaties"
If you've ever had water from a well at a forest preserve that is brown from iron and minerals, it is small consolation that it is safe to drink. It is just downright unappetizing. Particulate matter includes anything in the water that makes it cloudy or less than crystal clear. If you are dipping a bucket into a pond or river in an emergency situation, this is the first thing you'll notice. While all water filters will remove particulates, they will clog your filter and shorten the usable life of this precious resource. The best way to handle particulates is to let the water stand for 12 hours while the floaties settle to the bottom, then 'pre-filter' it by gentling pouring the water through some towels or cotton t-shirts. You should see a noticeable difference in the water. However, it is not safe to drink.
Level 2: Bacteria / Protozoa / VOC's / Heavy Metals
The next group of things that you want out of your water can be eliminated through boiling (bring to a rolling boil for at least one minute). This kills the bacteria and protozoa, and the VOC's (volatile organic compounds - think fertilizers and other chemicals...) will boil off. The only problem is that this will not eliminate the heavy metals (mercury, lead, etc), and boiling takes energy (difficult when your stove doesn't work) and time for the water to cool back down before you can drink it. You can add iodine or bleach to kill off the bugs, but this will do nothing to get rid of the VOC's and the heavy metals. Therefore, a filter is the best option if you are going to have to drink this water for any period of time (a couple of days of mercury and lead probably won't hurt you....)
Level 3: Viruses
While viruses are killed off by boiling, they are not typically eliminated with filters. The problem is that the filter elements have to be so fine to eliminate viruses that the flow rate is very slow and most manufacturers figure that viruses are not as big a problem in the US, so they get ignored. This can be addressed by pretreating the water with iodine or bleach before it is filtered; the additive kills the viruses and the filter removes the bad taste of the additive.
Step 4: Buy a Berkey or Sawyer SP 190 Filter and Rest Easy
If the power is out, a filter that mounts on your faucet will be worthless. So will Reverse Osmosis filters, which rely on water pressure to work. The only viable, foolproof option is a system that needs only gravity to move water through a filter that will remove everything we have talked about. Two such filters are the Berkey, widely considered as the "gold standard", and the Sawyer SP 190. There may be other filters available that will remove viruses as well as all the other nasties, but these two are the best. (Note that Sawyer has an SP 184 filter that is popular, but does NOT remove viruses like the SP190 model...) A Berkey comes with two filter elements that will supply you with 6,000 gallons of safe water.
Step 5: Collect Rainwater
Along with your filtration system, you will need to carry the water from the water source. Consider that five gallon buckets filled with water weigh about 40 pounds, so smaller containers are more practical. The best solution is merely purchasing a few extra plastic garbage cans for use as rain barrels. Just a half inch of rainfall will yield 300 gallons of water from a 1000 square foot roof. That would fill ten Rubbermaid 32 gallon garbage cans that cost only each. (If you purchase a "rainbarrel" you can expect to pay dollars each for a 40 gallon barrel). A simple downspout diverter can be obtained for under , like the Emsco Universal Water Diverter available at HomeDepot.com.
Summary
If you've read everything above and you take these precautions, you'll never have to worry about the most important commodity you need to survive. Storing some water and getting a good water filter takes almost no extra time. The rainbarrel setup takes a trip to the store and you don't even need to set it up unless something bad happens.
