Food and water are two of the most basic needs and therefore among the top concerns for prepping and survival. Food prepping is a complex issue: storing food, growing food, protein, fat, carbs, micro-nutrients, etc. There are many different considerations. Water, by comparison, seems simple. But only at first glance.
Can Stored Water Go Bad? Yes, it can. And store-bought water usually contains some bacteria. You can buy a large water storage barrel, but you still have the issue of water purification.
Many different methods of water purification are readily available. But you need a source of relatively clean clear water to start. And most water purification devices have a limit on the number of gallons per day that can be purified.
Where I live, ocean water is readily available and close-by. However, desalinization is beyond the capabilities of most water purification systems. Katadyn makes a nice compact efficient water desalinator, the Survivor 06, “the world’s smallest desalinator”. It produces almost a full quart of water per hour, and currently costs just under a thousand dollars. I’m serious when I say that it is an excellent product. It just happens to be the case that water desalination is difficult and expensive.
Now you could store water, instead of purifying or desalinating it. To my mind, though, the main problem with water storage is the volume. They say that you need a gallon of drinking water per person per day for survival purposes. Fine. So a family of 4 needs 120 gallons per month. That is a large amount of water to store. And the gallon per day figure is a bare minimum for drinking and cooking. Add to that the water you need for hygiene: bathing, flushing the toilet, cleaning dishes, etc., and you are talking about an amount of water that is not practical to store. My estimate of per person per day water needs, at a bare minimum:
1 gallon for drinking and cooking
5 gallons for flushing
9 gallons for bathing
5 gallons for cleaning cooking containers and utensils
Total: 20 gallons per person per day
That’s 80 gallons a day for a family of four, and 2400 gallons per month. Sure, you could get buy on less water, if necessary. But if town or well water is unavailable for more than a short period of time, you don’t want to skimp on water. Does 20 gallons per person seem high? The EPA estimates that the “average family of four can use 400 gallons of water every day”.
Solutions? The best approach for short-term water problems is probably a combination of storage and water purification equipment. But unless you have your own well on your property (and I suppose some way to defend it), water is likely to be one of your top concerns in any long-term disaster scenario. It’s a problem without an easy solution.
- Thoreau
Seriously?
WHEN the SHTF, you aren’t going to be worrying about using 5 gallons of water for flushing! Nor are you going to be taking 9 gallon showers! Your “estimate” for water usage must be for normal, everyday NOW stuff. In a TEOTWAWKI situation, baths, and flushing will be the LEAST of your worries. To use these figures and advocate storing this much water is going to make those just now realizing what is needed for a SHTF situation think there is NO WAY they can do it. Please be responsible, and use figures that represent a more balanced need in a real disaster situation. Obviously, you should mention that storing as much water as possible is a great idea, but giving this high a figure and saying that flushing and bathing are going to be pressing considerations is laughable.