Your Water Store
Water is always the most important commodity in any disaster situation. You can survive for a length of time without many things, but you must have water. After just a single day without water, your chances of surviving a SHTF scenario rapidly decrease. If you endure two to three days without water you will be in serious danger.
For children of nursing mothers, anyone with an injury or an illness, the need will be even greater. Any restrictions on your water intake will severely restrict the amount and effectiveness of any work or activity you are able to complete.
Not only is water needed to drink, it is also necessary for the preparation of food, washing, cleaning and in the long-term it is needed for watering any crops or animals you are planning to live-off.
This is all obvious to any survivalist or even anyone who has considered prepping. The problems arise because there is a huge difference between our experience of water in our everyday lives, and how water can suddenly seem when we view it as an essential stockpiling item. In our modern world, water is cheap, abundant and most importantly, it is easily available, usually at the turn of a tap. In short, we take it for granted. When we start to consider stockpiling water, it suddenly seems bulky, awkward to transport and store and relatively expensive.
For these reasons it is amazing how often preppers will neglect the stockpiling of a good water supply, even thought they know how essential it is. It might be difficult to imagine now, but when the SHTF, water not be cheap, abundant or easily available. In fact, it might be item that people are willing to kill for. Whatever you need to do to ensure a good and plentiful water supply will be well worth the effort.
The first thing you must think about stock piling is, therefore, a supply of water. There are four things to bear in mind about your supply of water. Firstly, it must be reliable. Secondly, must be plentiful. It also needs to be secure. And lastly, your water supply must be clean, or you should have some way of purifying it.
If you live in a rural area, you could be surrounded by any number of natural water sources. However, when considering natural water sources, remember that moving bodies of water, such as rivers or streams, are more likely to be clean than ponds or lakes. Always avoid stagnant standing water.
Those who reside in metropolitan areas should prepare for the water supply becoming affected in a SHTF situation. In cities it is likely that the water supply will rapidly become scarce. Stores, if they remain open, only stock enough essential supplies to last about a day. Water will rapidly disappear from shelves. Power outages are very likely to compromise the mains water supplies. In a SHTF situation is very dangerous and unrealistic to rely on rainwater.
The only real answer is to keep a significant stockpile of water in your home. Of course, the more you store, the longer your supply will last. Be warned, it is very easy to underestimate how much water you will need for a period of time. A reliable rule is to plan for each person to consume one gallon each day. For two people aiming to survive for a fortnight, you should plan to store about 30 gallons of water.
Your Secondary Water Store
It is essential that your water supply is pure, reliable and secure. This cannot be emphasized enough. The integrity of your water supply is absolutely crucial. It your store of water is compromised or contaminated in any way, you can forget the rest of your survival plan and all the other SHTF items you have stockpiled.
You can take a huge step to adding a level of insurance to your SHTF plan by making provisions for access to an alternative water source.
In any SHTF situation, once the disaster has lasted for more than 10-14 days, you will inevitably need to bug-out. It makes perfect sense to make sure you have a water store at your at your bug-out location. Again, because this location will be left uninhabited, take special care to ensure that this water source is safe and secure.
Your Mobile Water Store
You may have to bug-out at a moment's notice and you could be unsure that you will be able to get access to your preferred destination. For this reason, it is a great idea to always keep, at the very least, a gallon of water in your car. It should be regularly used and refreshed and be careful to ensure that water purification tablets are also kept in your car.
ITEM #16 – COMMERCIALLY-BOTTLED WATER
This doesn't mean you should buy one liter bottles from your local grocery store. Instead, look for wholesale suppliers to businesses, such as offices and gyms. These will be able to offer you the best products and deals on buying in bulk. The price of bottled water varies considerably, so take advantage when the price is low, and get stocked up. At times of crisis, the price will increase. Hopefully, you will have plenty of water stockpiled, but if you haven't don't let this put you off buying now – it is better to buy overpriced water than be left with none.
One delivery should complete your stock for a good time. However, it won't last forever. All bottled water comes with an expiration date. This means you need to consider how it is stored, as it will need to be used, rotated and replaced. You should also be careful not to break the seal until it is needed.
ITEM #17 - FOOD-GRADE WATER CONTAINERS
You may decide that commercially-bottled water is not for you and you would prefer to bottle your own. All you need for this is a stockpile of food-grade water containers. These are easily available at your local camping supplies store. The larger the container you choose, the fewer you will need for a certain quantity of water. However, be careful not to get carried away. Remember you will need to move these containers once they are full and water is not a light material.
Food-grade containers should completely sterilized when they are sold to you. However, if for any reason they are not, or if you have used them for holding any other substance, it is crucial that you disinfect them, as follows:
1. Only ever use plastic bottles. Cardboard containers can contain tiny residues of sugar or protein and can result in bacteria in your water.
2. All bottles must be washed in soap and water. Before you do this, be sure to check that your hands are completely clean, you don't want to risk exposing your containers to any source of bacteria. Once clean, rinse the bottle till they are completely free of soap.
3. The bottles then need to be disinfected. Mix four teaspoons of household chlorine bleach to every gallon of water. Take care that the solution has a chance to swill around all of the bottles. It is then essential that all of the bleach solution is thoroughly rinsed from the bottles.
4. Once the bottles are cleaned, disinfected and rinsed, you are ready to fill. They can be filled straight from the tap. The original cap for the bottle (also cleaned) should always be used as it needs to be tightly secured. While commercially-bottled water is sold with expiration dates, you need to add your own. Take a permanent marker and write the date six months from the day of bottling. Be sure to use these bottles before the date, and as always, rotate.
5. If you are using water that is not from the mains water supply and has not been treated with chlorine, you will need to do this yourself when bottling. Simply add two drops a chlorine-based household bleach for each gallon of water.
ITEM #18 - CANNED SELTZER
You can supplement your general water store with some canned seltzer water. This is a really useful product, it not only needs some fizz and variety to your water stockpile, but it also has been shown to relieve constipation. And best of all for preppers is that it can be stored as long as you like, because it doesn't go off!
ITEM #19 - WATER-BRICK CONTAINERS
The main problem with storing water is how bulky traditional water containers are and how much space they take up. Water-bricks make this problem a whole lot easier. They are not only portable and comfortable to pick up and carry, they are also specially designed to be easy to stack and can be used to fill any awkward space in your store.
ITEM #20 - A RAINWATER COLLECTOR
You do not want to be using valuable drinking water for washing. You also do not want to be using it when it is raining outside. For that reason you should invest in a rainwater collector. This will ease the pressure on your water store and make even a rainy day something productive. Keep your water collector clean and use a good quality water filter such as the 'Berkley.'