How to Get Water in a Disaster

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How To Get Water In a Disaster

Tue, 03/28/2006 00:00 — eric

Storing, Treating, Finding, and Getting More

Water is one of the most important survival resources. You can live for weeks without food, but only days without

water. Waterborne diseases like dysentery and giardia can kill within 2448 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 flatfooted and are not prepared at all.

This article is an updated version of the earlier draft in the AstaHost How To Forum.

Disclaimer: This information is offered in the hopes that it might be useful. Do not depend on this to keep yourself

alive without checking other sources and investigating techniques yourself. Never wait until you are in an

emergency to test your preparation plans.

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. A typical waterconserving family uses between 25 and 50 gallons of water per person, per day for all uses. We

use just under 25 gallons per day for a family of three. 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 traveling 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, pour 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.

Other useful techniques include using the water from canned vegetables like corn to cook rice or pasta. This not only flavors the rice, it saves you from using your precious

store of drinking water to make it. You can do the same with water left from cooking vegetables. The flavored water from steaming green vegetables such as kale or mustard

greens used to be called "pot liquor" and was often reused, even drank straight as a "tea".

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 demijohns and can sterile water just like jellies or jams. We have used such canned water as a sterile irrigant

for wounds on the farm.

Sevengallon water carboys like the Aquatainer™ can be an asset. They allow you to store a significant amount of water compactly and they can be readily

transported to refill or distribute water. A builtin spigot makes it easy to use when your faucet does not run. Having a small number of carboys makes it

easier to rotate your supply and keep it fresh.

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 (which will not work without power), seriously

consider a cistern or a raised water tank.

Treating Water

The Misty Manor, Mercers



Water TreatmentOptions (Liquidor tablet iodine)

Water HeaterDrainage Valve

Grape VineDripping

Article small farming

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. You can also use iodine in liquid form such as Betadine® solution often

found in first aid supplies (4 drops per liter for Betadine). They are a fast and effective short term option.

In the long term, iodine treated water is unhealthy and is dangerous for anyone with seafood allergies. Neither iodine nor chlorine at drinkable levels will

kill cryptosporidium parasites. A slight benefit I hope you will never need is that drinking iodine treated during the first two weeks of a radiation emergency

producing fallout may decrease the risk of thyroid cancer (it saturates the thyroid with nonradioactive iodine until the radioactive iodine in the fallout

decays after about two weeks).

Another way is to boil it. This also kills bacteria and parasites. The temperature necessary to kill pathogens (disease causing organisms) in the water is somewhat less

than boiling, so there is no need to boil for a prolonged period. Bringing the water to a full boil should be enough to disinfect it. Boiling water does not remove chemical

contamination.

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 gallonperday 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 distillation. 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.

The Water Treatment Methods page of the High Altitude Medicine Guide has more information on treatment options, including a table of how much liquid iodine to use in

various forms.

Obtaining Water

When you are simply 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. Shut off your home's water intake valve as soon as there is a

chance of contamination so that it will not taint the water heater. Place a clean container underneath your water heater's drainage valve, open a hot water

faucet somewhere for air and open the drainage valve to fill your container.

Another quick 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 goodsized roof, you can get several week's supply of water from one rain.

If you have grape vines growing in your yard, perhaps on a fence, on your farm, they are a good source of emergency drinking water. Grape vines must

pump water constantly from underground to the top leaves. When you cut a healthy vine, it will drip clean water for several hours. Collect the water in a

clean container. It will not provide a huge amount of water, but will keep you alive.

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.

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How to Get Water in a Disaster