SHTF: The Importance of Water

By Reginald Kaigler (DEMCAD)

Since your body can go longer without food than water, I recommend you start with water. Now keep in mind that your needs with vary depending on what region you live in. If you live in a desert in the Southeast, you will be storing more water than a person who is surrounded by the Great Lakes.

Water

Not only should you store water, but you should make plans to filter or clean it. You can drink the water you store and filter water from a local creek.

Step 1: Research and Plan
Research prices for large water containers, water filter and find out if your house relies on a pump or gravity to get water from the system. If your house gets water through a pump system, you may want to keep a note of it. If the electrical grid goes down and stays down for weeks, you may not have access to water, because the pumps require electricity. Just a thought. In that case, I would fill one of the bath tubs up with water when the lights go out. For example, if there was a dollar collapse, days of riots in major cities, food storages and then the power went out, it would be a good idea to fill that tub.

Make sure you get plenty of maps and locate every water source within 50 miles. You also need to walk to the best (and closest) source so that you can memorize it. This will come into play if you run out of emergency water.
The Rules
1. Store at least one month of water for everyone in your household.
2. Store one gallon of water for every person per day. There are three members in my household, so I store three gallons. So if I want to store one month for everyone, I store (3 gallons x 30 days = ) 90 gallons.
3. Have a means of cleaning new water.

Step 2: Store Water
You can get good ideas at Walmart for water cooler containers. This is what I use and it works for me. I but them and fill them up with tap water. I also pour some of the water out of the containers and refill it every it every six months. You can use the exiting water for another purpose such as cleaning.

Step 3: Acquire water filters and purifiers
Purifiers are substances that will kill the bacteria and germs in water so that you clean and drink river or clean water. Although, you might want to do some research on the factories located near the creek that you will be drinking out of. I recommend you research Katadyn water filters and the Berekley system.