Two: Water
Right up there with oxygen comes water in our list of essentials. After a doomsday event you should never trust water supplies, even it appears all are working normally. You simply don’t know what might have happened further up the supply chain. Always be safe, never, ever trust the water supply! Rant over.
The obvious solution to this problem is to store at least some water in your food store. Do be careful about how long the water will stay safe for, ensure you have a list of when the water will go bad and drink and replace before that happens. I’m not normally a fan of soft drink, but again a small supply could be a useful addition to a food storage area. A sugary drink could be an excellent idea when blood sugars are low and tiredness sets in, especially in those early days after the doomsday event. Longlife fruit juices may also be a good idea to store, obviously they won’t give you the health benefits that fresh juices do, but it is often better than nothing.
I would aim to store no more than enough water to last you one month. Even then that is probably too much, we need a lot of water and it will take a massive amount of space to store any more. You really have to allow four litres of fluid per person per day! This allows for cooking, a small amount of washing as well as drinking. For a family of four for a month you are looking at storing some 480 litres. That’s a lot of bottles!
Ultimately you are going to need an alternative water source because you simply will not be able to store enough for any length of time. As you will find out, we recommend that you have a bolt hole to go to in the event of a doomsday event. We recommend that bolt hole is in the country, close to a small water source, ideally in the hills.
Your first job after collecting water is to filter it. This will remove any visible particles from the water. You may think that the water is clear, but you should never skip this important step, you will live to regret it. Water filtration kits are available to purchase and we recommend that you have a number of quality models in your storage area. Failing that, filtering the water through a series of clean handkerchiefs and socks stuffed inside a cut open plastic water bottle is a very credible substitute.
After filtering the next stage of the process is purification. If you miss out this stage you are doomed to death. Never fail to purify water before you drink it. Everyone knows the best method to purify water; you need to boil it. Make sure that you are actually boiling the water, the liquid should be bubbling. And also ensure that you boil the water for at least ten minutes, this will be enough to kill all the germs, bacteria and any other nasties that might be lurking. All you have to do then, is wait for it to cool and drink it. I would recommend that you boil water before you cook with it as well. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the cooking process will kill the germs. It doesn’t matter if the water is boiled twice, better safe than sorry.
The other, simple method of purifying water is to use a tablet that can be bought online or from any camping or outdoor store. There are a number of different types on the market, simply ensure that you follow the instructions for use to the letter. Just be careful about tablets, because once the seal has been broken on the bottle, they do have a shelf life. Never exceed that shelf life thinking that it will be ok. If in doubt, don’t use and boil instead.
The whole process of water purification is one that should be mastered. This link goes to a fantastic little book that looks at this subject in far more detail than we are ever able to in our one hour read book today. I urge you to spend the few dollars needed on it. It might just save your life. http://tinyurl.com/bvlv6px
There may be an occasion when you don’t have access to a ready supply of fresh water. This is when you need to be really creative. The obvious method of getting a supply of fresh drinkable water is to capture rain water to drink. Plastic sheeting is ideal for this job. The bigger the better, lay out the sheeting in such a manner that the rain water runs down into some form of receptacle. Trees are a good source of water if times are hard. By tying a plastic bag tightly around a branch with leaves overnight it should produce you a quantity of water by morning. It won’t be a lot, but it will keep you alive till you find an alternative source.
Yes, you can also drink your urine if you are really up against it, but we don’t have time in this book to talk you through the process of how you do that. Make learning this skill one of your educational tasks (discussed later on in the book.)
Condoms make fantastic water carriers if needed. Special services around the globe have been using condoms for this purpose for years. Choose the ones without spermicide applied though!