Category: Preparedness

Our teacher has said, time and again, Water! Water! Water! Store water. Water will become more precious than gold. Move out of the cities and buy a bit of land, and have your own well so that YOU can be in control of your water supply.

Why do we suppose he keeps going on about WATER? I mean, here in the U.S., EVERYBODY has water ALL the time, so it is easy to forget about putting up water. Or you may have done a teeny tiny bit in respect to being able to supply your family with water 24/7/365 (that is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year), and you keep MEANING to get around to the other stuff you haven't done yet.

But here's the thing: If the "event" (earthquake, earth tilting on its axis, tsunami, pick one) doesn't kill you, what is the FIRST thing you're going to die from? It is lack of water that you can drink. You can go days without food. You can go even longer if all you are lacking is a cozy home. (Do you know how to build a little emergency shelter in the woods with leaves and branches and sticks? Might not be the poshest place, but it could definitely save your you-know-what.)

But you have to have water. And it is nice to have more than just enough to keep you from kicking the proverbial bucket.

So let's look at how to have water 24/7 x 365 days a year. For a couple of years. And let's include not just people who live out in the country with their own well, but let's also include those people who live in the suburbs and have a backyard, as well as people who live in cities, condos and apartments. Note: Just because you live in a city, condo or apartment, I say you do NOT have to resign yourself to kicking the bucket. It might be good, though, for you to have a couple of contingency plans :o)

You will want ONE gallon per person per day for just "drinking and cooking". Then, if you ever want to wash your face, hands or what-not you will need a minimum of another ONE gallon of water per person per day. And maybe add an extra gallon or two so you can wash your hair once a week?

CITIES, CONDOS & APARTMENTS (with a caveat for those with land & a well)

You most likely have limited storage space, but you have to look at your place with new eyes. Walk around and make a list of every place you can find a 2'x2'x2' cube of unused space. In the dinky storage place on the balcony/patio, in the 2nd and 3rd bedroom closets (sure all the racks are full of all your clothes, but underneath them? Bingo!), the floor in the coat closet, in the tub in the 2nd bathroom (oh, right, the kitty litter box is there). Is there any reason you can't build a bucket bed instead of the frame, box spring and mattress? Ditto for Condo people. (and suburb people too, although you have LOTS of extra places to put stuff.)

Notice I didn't say Go look for more storage places. I know you've already done that. And can't really see many places. And that is because you always look in the same way, from the same perspective. But if you are looking specifically for a 24"x24"x24" space, your brain has to work differently (like Ramtha saying to brush your teeth with your left hand this week – forces the brain to take new pathways).

So you people with very little room can find little spaces. Then you go to Wal-Mart and get some of the square cobalt blue stackable water containers. Wal-Mart usually only carries the 7 gallon version, and not the 4 gallon one. These stack really well. The spigot screws into the underside of the cap so it won't get damaged when you stack them. The plastic has no BPA in it. We sell these at Optimum Preparedness, both the 4 and 7 gallon size. But we don't have the buying power of Wal-Mart. So if you have a Wally World near you, go get them there because they are CHEAP! All you people with LOTS of room to store water should still have at least one for the kitchen and one for the bathroom – they are dandy containers. Then, you get a couple of extra sets of the spigot assemblies from me, because that is the only part that ever breaks down (and mainly only if you leave them out in your backyard for 8 or 10 years...).

People in FIRST FLOOR apartments/condos or in homes can also store water in the 50-55 gallon barrels. Because a 55 gallon barrel of water weighs 450 pounds, people might want to be cautious before putting them on a balcony. You can buy new ones (fairly spendy) or used ones (you'll need to properly clean them before storing water in them, but as long as it was foodstuff in them you'll be fine).

If you are storing water outside of your home, like in an unheated garage or storage building, barn, against the back of the house, etc. you will want to leave about 4 or 5 inches of headroom (empty space) between the water and the lid. Why? Because if it gets really cold for several days or weeks that water will freeze! And ice takes up more space than water. So if the barrel is too full, then the bottom of the barrel bulges out and the barrel falls over.

Almost sounds as if I learned this from personal experience (like back in 1989 or 1990) now doesn't it? If you thought that, you'd be correct. Then you have to figure out how to set a 450 pound barrel back up right again.

I also stored water in a barrel that originally had jalapeno peppers in it long enough that the flavor permeated the plastic. I found that if you make coffee with that water you can barely taste the jalapeno flavor coming through the coffee flavor. I also made Tang with the water (the orange breakfast drink the astronauts drink, or used to drink). It also masks the jalapeno flavor fairly well. I thought the jalapeno Tang was better than jalapeno coffee.... But this experience led me to discover ways to remove nearly any "taste" from the barrels prior to filling. (Can you imagine 2 years of jalapeno flavored coffee, showers and teeth brushing??? blech!)

HOW MUCH WATER DO I NEED TO STORE?

Short Term Water Storage

Good question. The scenarios include the power being out for several days because of a storm, whether hurricane, wind storm, tornado and the like. You want 2 gallons per person per day. How long were the people back east out of water for during that last hurricane? A week? You have mom, dad and 2 kids? That would be 4 people x 2 gallons. That comes to 8 gallons of water. You didn't REALLY want to wash your hair during that week right? WAIT!! You ALSO have a dog and three kittens??? Yikes!

So do the kids or the kittens go without water? You have to figure the pets into the equation as well.

The size of your dog is also important. A Great Dane is going to drink WAY more than little WufferShnuffer. Fill a gallon jug with water (you will notice that I am all for empirical data – don't GUESS how much your dog drinks: find out EXACTLY how much your dog drinks a day). Start with an empty water dish. Fill it from

the gallon jug. Refill the bowl as needed throughout the day. Before going to bed make a note on the calendar. Galahad drank almost the whole gallon. Or little WufferShnuffer drank almost a cup and a half. And Winken, Blinken and Nod only drank 1 cup. Run the test for a week so you see an average. Then plan for 20% extra. (Stress and/or illness make animals and people need more water.)

Here's another thing for the short term power outage. This is for any of you on a city water supply or community water supply. If it is a fairly severe storm, you will have heard the weather person on the TV saying to prepare for power outages. The MINUTE your power goes out start filling clean containers with drinking water at the kitchen sink – jugs, pitchers, canning jars, whatever you can lay your hands on. And have someone start filling the bath tub with water RIGHT AWAY. Either keep the tub fairly clean OR DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT – don't waste the time or water to scrub the tub now. You're going to use this water to flush the toilet (only when necessary) and maybe wash hands (and most dogs, except ShnufferWuffer up above) will drink water from ANYWHERE.

Here is why: If the power goes out, then the pump that fills the water tower that feeds your house is going to quit working. As soon as a bunch of people go to the toilet and flush, there goes the water in the water tower. Soon all you'll get is a teeny little dribble out of the faucet. Maybe the community has a backup generator with enough gas for a day. But when will the person responsible show up and fire up the generator? If you do not have personal control over your water supply, understand that the water is limited by whether or not an electric pump can refill the tank/cistern your water comes from. Either you grab the water or it will go down the toilets of others.

You will have minutes to maybe part of an hour to get as much water accumulated as possible, allowing to keep your stored water for back up. If your power comes back on in a few hours, dandy. Wait until the storm/event is completely over then empty the water. Because one of these days, the power won't be coming back on so quickly and you will be extremely happy to have that extra water.

Long Term Water Storage

Longer term water storage necessitates a bit more planning and a broader strategy. So that we are all on the same page, let's use the same parameters: we want to have available 2 years worth of water. Great. We're good for 22 gallons of water with our Aqua-Tainers in the closets. Or we have 8 of the 55 gallon barrels of water in the shed out back (400 gallons +/-). That seems like a lot. Is "a lot" enough? Well.... uhmmm.... it's pretty much... Is "pretty much" enough??

OK. Here we go again. Sometimes people that are totally on-board with a thing (like having 2 years of water, or food, for that matter) can't quite translate that into "SO HOW MUCH DO I NEED?????"

This group includes those in the city, in condos and apartments, and that have their 5+ acres, a well and even a hand pump. I must say, that is a completely normal reaction and question. Because they sure didn't teach "Water For 2 Years 101" in High School OR in College, at least not here in the United States.

SO HOW MUCH DO I NEED???

That is a pretty easy answer for all the city/condo/apartment people who don't have their own well. More than you can store in your home (couldn't resist that one). OK, but let's come up with a number. Two people in an apartment: 2 gallons a day for Jack and 2 gallons a day for Jill, for a total of 4 gallons a day. 2 years is 730 days. 4 gallons a day times 730 days (and lots of dirty hair) equals 2,920 gallons of water. DANG!! you say. NO WAY that will fit into a one bedroom apartment!! Bingo. That's why The Big Guy has been saying to get out of the cities and get a piece of land with a well.

So you store as much as you can, and then make plans AHEAD OF TIME on where you will evacuate to. Then you will lay in stores of water and food at that destination. I would suggest seeing if you could have 2-3 months of water and food at your current dwelling then the rest at the place you go to.

This will be a bit different for those in the suburbs with a yard big enough to garden in, and who can store more barrels of water, especially if there is a water source nearby where you can haul the water home and then run it through a water filter before drinking. Do you have a good home, with a basement and you can garden but you are on city water? Consider putting a well in the backyard. Build a shed around it and then put in a hand pump (shed first, hand pump second – if you are the ONLY one for miles around with water, you don't think you'll have a whole lot of neighbors and then more and more and more people coming as word spreads that you have a well and potable water?)

The Pitfalls of Having One's Own Well

Let's say you have your 5+ acres, and of course you have a well and septic system. That's how it works in "the country". You're set, right? What if your power goes out? Sucks to be you? No, because you have a generator and have had it wired so you can still pump water even if the power is out. Great. If that is the case, make sure a professional electrician put in the transfer switch. A transfer switch makes sure that when you power up a generator to run your fridge or well pump or whatever, that electricity doesn't feed back out to the power lines, which could kill a lineman trying to fix the lines.

Maybe you also have a hand pump on your well (which is a really good idea). I know a lady who has one, and once a month just like clockwork, she goes out and pumps a bucket or two of water to make sure it all still works fine. She has done this year after year and her pump still works perfectly. I also know someone who put a hand pump on their well somewhere around 20 years ago and never looked at it again. Does it still work? Will it pump water? Who knows? So this is not so good, especially as we enter 2012.

I also know someone who has the 5+ acres, the well and septic system, and is completely off the grid – has the solar panels and battery bank, has the hand pump on the well too. In this type of scenario it is common to pump the water from the well into a big above ground water tank that holds from 1100-2500 gallons. Then a smaller pump would pull water out of the big tank and put the water into the pressure tank that feeds the house water supply.

What a great system. They SURELY don't need to have any barrels of water stored or even the 4-7 gallon spigoted water containers, because they have the perfect setup. Power outages aren't going to affect these guys now are they? Well.... here's the thing. It might not be 'no electricity' that can take this excellent water system down.

All that needs to happen is for the daytime and night time temperatures to stay below freezing for a week or two, and guess what? The surface of the water in the big tank will freeze solid. And once the surface freezes solid, there is no sucking water out of that tank until the weather changes and the ice thaws enough that it is no longer causing a vacuum. Someone with acreage, well, generator, 12 volt with solar panels and off the grid CAN find themself without any water. So even they should have some barrels and containers of water.

What they should have done (and probably will next time) is fill several of the 4-7 gallon stackable spigoted water containers with water and have them indoors where they can't freeze, and fill at least one of the 55 gallon barrels with water (in the garage) so they can use that for flushing the toilet.

Plus people with the large water tanks also have to figure out how to keep any external pipes coming off that great big tank from freezing. Being in an insulated building would be the best thing. Second would be to have the water lines as insulated as possible, because if even one of those lines breaks, the whole water system goes down. The less the exposed pipes the better.

This week is WHAT?? (WATER! WATER!! WATER!!!)
Next week is HOW To Store That WATER! WATER!! WATER!!! and WHERE To Find Those Barrels

Teri Simpson
www.OptimumPreparedness.com