Always Safe, Always Prepared

Most Americans don’t realize it, but we have already won the lottery. 

In the United States, the majority of us can do three things most of the rest of the world can’t do: take a hot shower, get a clean glass of water from the tap, and flush a toilet.
Most of us don’t even think about this from day to day, but we are truly blessed to have access to clean drinking water, much less for luxuries like bathing.
Medical professionals stress that humans need a minimum of eight glasses of water a day to maintain overall health and proper cell function, and we can only survive at all without water for a matter of days.

So what do you do if say you wake up and turn on the TV to see emergency broadcasts warning you not to drink the water?
Any number of disasters can cut off your water supply, from sewage leaks to flash floods, and from natural disasters to terrorism. One thing is certain, if a major emergency situation occurs, bottled water is one of the first commodities to vanish from grocery stores.
The time to prepare is now, and water is your top concern. I will share with you some smart ways to build up your water supply and put your family way ahead of the survival game.
Your first consideration in your water stockpile plan is how much water you need to make your disaster preparations viable. I personally recommend keeping it simple; 1 gallon of water per person, per day.

Think, there’s 4 liters in a gallon, so 1 gallon of water a day gives you 2 liters a day for drinking allowance, fulfilling the minimum medical recommendation for daily water intake, and then two liters for cooking and sanitation (I’m talking just sponging off, no long hot showers).

Depending on the size of your family, you could be talking about some serious stockpiling. At a gallon of water per person per day, say for a minimum of two people, to survive for two weeks without running water, you’d need to store up 28 gallons.
That is over 230 pounds of water. For a month’s water supply, that’s 60 gallons, or 500 pounds of water. For a three month supply, you’re talking 180 gallons or 1500 pounds of water just for two adults.

I have to pee just thinking about it.
If you have a large family with three or more kids, you can see how building up a substantial stockpile can be tough, so proper planning is key.

Depending on the size of your home, you may or may not be able to stockpile enough water in-house as it were, to survive an extended emergency.

An “extended emergency” usually translates to a crisis lasting over three weeks. A responsible prepper should shoot for having at least a month’s worth of water saved.
Here we will focus on utilizing the space available in your home for building up your water supply (for more information on storing water off-site, see my guide in the Family Survival Society under Week 33, entitled Outdoor Caching).

To help overcome the space issue, I suggest using a variety of containers of assorted sizes to store your water. Your local sporting goods store sells large plastic containers for storing water in the camping section. Some of these plastic tanks hold up to 7 gallons and they are easily stackable like Legos for storage.

Depending on how many of these large water tanks you can realistically keep on your property, you can keep say four or five of these tanks as your “core supply” and then continue to supplement it with smaller containers.
Get creative! Tuck smaller water jugs under beds, behind your furniture, wherever you can find some room.

Let’s talk about these water containers for a moment as well. You can’t just use any old plastic receptacle to store your water. Certain plastics will contaminate your water, and contaminated water is useless to you.

Always make sure your water container is good grade and choose storage tanks designed to store rainwater. Look for FDA approved DOT #34 containers.
Speaking of contamination, a lot of preppers don’t realize that water too has an expiration date. This of course depends on the container it’s stored in, the temperature at which the water is stored and its level of exposure to light. 

To avoid contamination, store your water in opaque containers and keep them away from light, as light encourages the growth of algae.

If you’re going to be storing water for longer than six months, you will need to treat it to keep it drinkable. If you do not want to bother treating your water, you will need to swap it out for fresh water every six months.

On this note, make sure you date and label your water so you know when to change it out.
Stockpiling water may seem like a daunting task, but it’s one of those things you really can’t afford not to do. Water is of greatest concern when preparing your family to survive a catastrophe. 
It is not something that can or should be taken lightly...
Always Safe, Always Prepared

Frank Mitchell
Founder

P.S. Stockpiling water can take up a lot of space, but it's nothing compared to the amount of space your food stockpile can take up. Nevertheless, you HAVE to be able to feed your family, no matter what.

Fortunately, a friend of mine has developed an incredible gardening system that takes up almost no room and produces huge amounts of food by comparison using the Vertical Gardening technique.

The 4 Foot Farm is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to get started.

You can get all the details here.