Emergency Drinking Water - Make Sure It's Safe to Drink!

Water is an Essential Part of Preparedness Planning

By taking steps now to store emergency drinking water and food supplies, along with a bug out bag, you can reduce the affect of any disaster on your family, whether it be a natural or human-caused disaster.

It is a well known fact that we can survive for quite a while without food, but will perish in a short time without fluids of some sort.

Not only that, but you can get REALLY sick REALLY fast if you drink the wrong kind of aqua!

The Rule of 3 puts things into perspective a bit...Most humans can only survive 3 MINUTES without air, 3 DAYS with nothing to drink and 3 WEEKS without food.

Emergency Drinking Water When The Power Goes Out

Should there ever be a lockdown in your city, your water supply may be limited unless you have access to a spring or creek of some sort.

In the case of an electrical outage, many people find themselves out of drinks within a few hours.

FLUIDS is one of the essentials to survival in my opinion!

We were without power recently for about 16 hours and we soon realized that we need to think about an alternative drinking water solution.

Even though we live near streams and springs where we could easily get the wonderful clear liquid, there is still the danger of contamination.

So a good filter system is a great item to add to your prepper kit checklist.

Alternate Emergency Water Sources Inside and Outside Your Home

Inside:

If a disaster catches you without a stored supply of clean water, you can use the following:

• your hot-water tank
• pipes and faucets
• ice cubes

If your tap water is safe to drink, so is anything in your pipes and hot-water tank, even if the idea seems unappealing.

To use the water in your hot-water tank, be sure the electricity or gas is off, then open the drain at the bottom of the tank. Start the flow by turning off the water intake valve at the tank and turning on a hot-water faucet.

Refill the tank before turning the gas or electricity back on.

To use the water in your pipes, identify and turn on the highest faucet in your home to let air into the plumbing. You then can get it from the lowest faucet.

Outside:

If you need to find a good aqua source outside your home, try:

• Rainwater
• Streams, rivers, and creeks
• Ponds and lakes
• Natural springs

Take steps to make fluids from any of these sources safe before drinking it. You should never drink flood water.

Untreated water can make one very, very sick. Dysentery, typhoid and hepatitis, are all diseases that you can get from drinking contaminated liquids.

Some of the simplest ways to purify emergency drinking water is to either boil it or add chlorine to it.

Boiling it:

Boil for one minute and then it helps the flavor if you pour the water back and forth, from one container to another several times before drinking it. And of course cooling it will help the flavor as well.
Chlorinating:
Using household bleach, add about 1/8th teaspoon to a gallon of water and let set for about 30 minutes. You want it to smell VERY slightly of chlorine but not strong. Just a light, light whiff.
You may have to try a few times till you get that whiff..but if after a few attempts, it still won't smell, try another source of water...these methods are not completely fool proof but will help if you are ever desperately in need of something to drink!

For everyday water needs, such as laundry and bathing, you can use rain, creeks, etc...Rain water is actually some of the best liquid to wash your hair in ...makes for nice soft shiny hair...:)