Water Storage for Hurricanes and Disasters
Water Storage for Hurricanes and Disasters
How Much?
Tis’ the season to be prepping. Here on the East Coast and also along the Gulf Coast, people are doing some practical prepping as we gear up for hurricane season. One of the most important components to survival is water. Experts say you can only survive for about three days without water. There are a few stories, such as those in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti where survivors went as long as a week without water. Most of those survivors had some type of story of praying every moment or mysterious visitations while they were trapped. I would chalk these events up as miraculous interventions by God. Even to survive three days without water would be extremely painful and could result in permanent damage.
Today’s post will look at several solutions to make sure you have water after the storm and during a disaster. The simplest solution is to purchase bottled water. As we know, this can get pricey and the empty bottles are filling up land fills like crazy. An easy alternative to just buying bottled water is to keep your plastic beverage containers and fill them up. We keep our old juice bottle, rinse them well and store water in them. They are much stronger than milk jugs which tend to leak if you store water in them for long periods of time. Another type of strong beverage container is 2 liter soda bottles. Wash and rinse them well and they will work fine for water storage. I recommend storing a minimum of 10 days worth of drinking water. Just for drinking and cooking, each member of your family will need 1 gallon per day and allocate a half gallon per day for each pet.
What If I Run Out?
Water storage can take up a lot of space. But it is possible that you could be in a situation that requires you to go longer than 10 days with out your regular supply of water. One great alternative source of water is a rain catch system. Food grade barrels can be placed under gutters to catch the rain run off from your roof. Click here to read an entire post on building a rain catch system.
Last weeks interview with Zion Prepper on out Prepper Recon Podcast talked about some unique ways of storing water and unconventional places to find water. One of the places Zion Prepper mentioned was you hot water heater. You can access the water in the hot water heater by opening the valve at the bottom of the heater. It is under pressure, so watch out. It should have threads to attach a garden hose to make it easier to control. It may also need to be purified if your water table has been compromised. Zion Prepper also mentioned plastic water bladders like the Water Bob that can be filled up in your tub to store water. These are about $25.
Water that is taken from outside needs to be purified and/or filtered. Even the run off from your roof needs to be purified and filtered. Contaminants can get into the containers over time. Mosquitoes take up shop in all available water here in Florida. They are known to carry several types of disease, so please purify that water.
Purification and Filters
Water can be purified by boiling it or by using 8 drops of bleach per gallon of clear water or 16 drops of bleach for cloudy water. Once you have used bleach, you can use pitcher water filters like Britta or Pur to remove the Chlorine taste, but those filters are not designed to kill microbial contaminates. You can also purchase water purification tablets to keep in your bug out bag.
There are filters that are designed to remove all levels of contaminates from your water. Depending on the size and price you are willing to pay, you can choose from several types. The Aqua Rain water filter takes up a lot of space but filters large amounts of water. Katadyn makes several models of water filters that will easily fit into a bug out bag. These filters are light and portable and can be used to bug out or to bug in. They range in price from about $400 to under $100. All of these filters are available through Camping Survival.com.
Make your preparations now. Once the crunch is on, you will have enough stress without worrying about what you are going to drink.
Happy Prepping!
