Water is one of the most important survival resources. You can live for weeks without food, but only days without water. Water-bourne diseases like dysentary and giardia can kill within 24-48 hours and can incapacitate, making you unable to help yourself, in less than a day. This article will tell you where and how to get clean water in an emergency, first by telling you how to store it, then how to treat it, and last, how to survive if you were just plain caught flat-footed and are not prepared at all.
How much water does one need? The average person needs one liter (roughly one quart) of clean water each day to drink. Some of this can be gotten from other sources besides drinking plain water, but one 16 ounce soda does not equal 16 ounces of water. So, a family of four needs one gallon of clean water a day just to drink. Add to this washing, brushing teeth, and so forth, and it quickly adds up. Storing water, therefore, is largely a matter of how long you expect to use it and how much you are willing to not use it except where critical. In general, forty gallons of water should get a family of four a good week's worth of emergency water for basic needs. We will talk below about why forty gallons is a good number to work with.
If you are travelling or need to get out of a disaster zone, remember that your car needs water too, especially in the stop and go traffic of any emergency situation. After several hours of heavy traffic, your car may be drinking water faster than you do. Your car, however, does not require drinkable water. When desperate, drink the water first, then give it to the car when your body is done with it. In any case, having several gallons of water in your car is always a good idea. You never know when an emergency will strike.
Recycling Water
When in an emergency, always try to get as much use out of the water you have as you can. The simple trick described above with the radiator can save lives. Similarly, there is no reason you cannot use dirty water or wash water to flush the toilet. In this case, poor the water into the bowl and let the valve do its work rather than into the tank. You will see why below. You can use rinse water from one set of dishes as the wash water for the next. For that matter, you can use the rinse water for wash water and then use it to flush the toilet. In a drought, wash water or grey water can be used for irrigation. Just be aware of the detergents and other chemicals you put into the water.
Storing Water
Factory sealed bottled water, particularly distilled water can last for some time. Water you bottle yourself is good for at most months. Regularly change out any water you store in this way. As an alternative, you can use mason jars or demijons and can sterile water just like jellies or jams. We use such canned water as a sterile irrigant for wounds on the farm. A cistern is an excellent device for storing water. It is essentially a lined (usually concrete) hole with a hole in the top to get water in and out and usually a pipe to the bottom to flush it out periodically. For a house, cistern sizes of between 1600 and 4000 gallons are not uncommon. A cistern gives you a guaranteed water supply for a long period of time. If you are in an area which gets frequent droughts or depend on a well, seriously consider a cistern or a raised water tank.
Treating Water
What do you do if you have water but it is or might be contaminated? You can treat contaminated water in several ways. One way is to use treatment tablets. These usually contain iodine and work by killing bacteria and parasites. They are a fast and effective short term option. In the long term, iodine treated water is unhealthy. Another way is to boil it. This also kills bacteria and parasites.
If you have chemical contaminants or sediment, you can filter water. Systems like Brita™ and PUR™ pitchers or faucet filters will remove sediment, some chemicals, and some bacteria (http://www.waterfiltercomparisons.net/Wate..._Comparison.cfm). More expensive ceramic filters will make raw sewage drinkable (http://www.aquatechnology.net/ceramic_technologies.html). A $300 80 gallon-per-day ceramic filter can provide emergency water for an entire neighborhood. Smaller $80 siphon filters can provide for a family. In hurricanes or floods, the problem is not usually getting water (you have too much), it is finding clean water. A single filter can replace a truckload of relief water.
Yet another option is distilation. This is remarkably easy to do in a home. Just dig a hole, put a bowl or pot in the middle of the hole, pour the dirty water around the bowl and cover with clear plastic. Secure the edges of the plastic, place a weight in the center (to force condensation to drip into your container, and let the sun do its work. Sunlight will heat the dirty water, causing it to evaporate. Water vapor condenses on the plastic and clean water drips into your container--- simple, cheap, and effective.
Obtaining Water
When you are simpy caught off guard and need water quickly, what do you do? You have several options which require very little effort, but most people will die of thirst before thinking of them. Most homes have a built in reserve water tank with upwards of thirty or forty gallons (remember this number from above?) which most people forget about. Where is it hiding? In your hot water heater. The water heater stores an amount of water hot so that it does not have to run all the time. When the power is out, the water is no longer hot, but it is clean. Another wuick source is your toilet tank. This is water that is stored before it is used by the toilet, so it is still clean. Remember when I said to not pour dirty water into your toilet tank?
You have several clean sources outside the house as well. One of them is snow melt. Snow, if chosen carefully (do not eat the yellow snow...) is clean and can be melted. I have survived off of snow while camping, and my sister's family used snow melt for weeks after their well went dry and they were trying to get a new one drilled. The other obvious source is rain. In a flood or storm, water on the ground is quickly contaminated. Water falling from the sky is generally clean. Put out a container to catch it. Let the first bit of rain clean your roof and then catch the rain off of the eaves. One year in camp, my wife and I filled two fifty gallon containers in minutes by redirecting the water from our dining fly. If you have a cistern, fill it from the rain water. Off of a good-sized roof, you can get several week's supply of water from one rain.
The Best Container
The best container for water is your body. Many people die of thirst in the desert with full canteens because they are rationing. Dehydration makes it hard to think and hard to help yourself. Always drink a full ration of water and, if your water supply is low, put the effort into changing the situation: getting water or getting out.
Conclusion
Water is a precious commodity in an emergency and many people die without it. If you keep a level head and do a little prep work, however, water can be obtained even in dire circumstances. We (my wife and I) give disaster preparation talks in the Missouri Springfield area.
This work is copyrighted 2006 by Eric Vought. Astahost and Xisto corporation are licensed to reproduce this work at no cost for the purpose of driving traffic to their web sites and obtaining advertising. All other rights reserved.
Interesting reading, btw.
