In this post we're going to talk about water … water to drink, water to flush your toilet, water for your animals and water to run your household.
In a disaster situation
drinkable, useable water is often the first thing that becomes unavailable and
is the one thing we cannot live without.
Several days after some of the
stores in our area had electricity restored, they still did not have safe water
to drink or bathrooms for customers use.
One store set up port-a-potties outside the store. Another store limited the number of customers
that could be in the store at one time to 25 because there was no water for the
store sprinkler system. Both of these are very large nationally well-known stores.
Drinkable, useable water was
trucked into our area by the tractor trailer loads for several weeks. Watering
stations were set up in different locations so people could get the water they
needed. For those who were trapped by
the flood waters or damaged roads getting drinkable water was a real issue.
So, let’s talk about water and
look at some ways to be prepared in this area …
Bottled water (watch for sales
and stock up if it’s not an immediate emergency), you would need to use and
rotate to keep fresh
5 gallon size jugs of water you can purchase, you would need to use and
rotate to keep fresh
Fill up the bathtub or use a waterbob
Use Watering cans to transport water
Use Watering cans to transport water
Fill up clean empty milk
cartons
Fill up empty juice bottles
Boil, treat and sterilize water from outside sources (you would want to be careful where
you got the water).
Catch rain water
Patsi
Sharing 42 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building
My second blog: From This Heart of Mine
She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27
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We use well water at our house, so if we loose hydro, we loose our water as well. Furthermore, when this area was affected by flooding a few years ago, my parent were told to assume the well water was contaminated from flood waters (which usually has fecal contamination), despite the hydro still working. They were told to boil the water before using for weeks afterwards, just in case.
ReplyDeleteI started buying cases of water to store, in case of emergencies. We currently have several stored on a shelf in our basement. To rotate them, we use the bottled water regularly to offer company and to take with us when we go on day trips. It's much cheaper to take bottled water with us, then to buy the over-priced bottles at various attractions, events or even at convenience stores! As you said, I watch for sales (especially during the summer...they often go on sale for $0.98/18 bottles and that's in Canada!) and replace the cases as we use them, taking care to rotate the stock and use older cases first.
We also have a few large, recycled water/juice bottles filled with our well water. They don't get rotated very often, so despite being clean water, it's not really good for drinking. However, we can use this water for cleaning (dishes, hands or other hygiene) or possibly cooking with.
We live very close to a waterway system (walking distance if need be, though hauling water by hand is hard work) and our area is well known for it's lakes. There is no shortage of places we could draw water from to use for flushing toilets!
Water is one of the hardest things to store in large quantities for us. We have a few cases of water bottles that get used up and rebought. I keep 100 soda bottles that I rotate out every 6 months. We live near a lake so we purchased Lifestraws and a water purification system. We keep a Lifestraw in the car in case anything ever happens while we are away.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great series of posts. I hope you'll come over and link them all at The Fabulous January Party. Here's this weeks link:
ReplyDeletehttp://ourholidayjourney.blogspot.com/2017/01/january-link-party-week-2.html
Thanks for linking and don't forget to comment for extra points in the Happy Birthday Giveaway!
We keep toilet flushing water in gas cans in our garage. They have been there for about 20 years and never leaked. We just refill them when we use them.
ReplyDeleteWe have a bore(underground water) we could pump to use for household water. We have a small rainwater tank that's behind our shed. We could use this for drinking water if required. Our neighbours have large rainwater tanks so drinkable water would be available to us.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know how long you could keep and safely drink, the water kept in glass bottles away from sunlight?
ReplyDeleteWe have pretty good tap water where we live, so do not drink bottled water regularly, but I do keep some (glass bottled water)in a cupboard for when the water mains is cut off.
I've read 6 months unless it is treated so I rotate mine every 6 months.
DeleteThank you! Will do the same :)
DeleteBlessings X
I have about 10 gallons of drinking water and only about 3 gallons of non-drinking water so i need to up my game for the water. I live in the city so no streams or ponds near by unless you count the Willamette River that I live close to but actually to far away to be helpful.
ReplyDeleteThank you Patsi for sharing this link! I have added it to our post! :)
ReplyDeleteP.S. Are you Patsi or Patsy? I see both spellings on your blog? Thanks! :)
ReplyDeleteJes, I use both spellings so feel free to use either.
DeleteHow interesting! Thanks-- I will use the "y" then :)
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