Water

Water storage tips:

I’ve spent enough time in Haiti to know how important access to clean drinking water is. I know people in Port-Au-Prince who spend half their day just getting clean water. I saw the cholera epidemic there. I’ve seen kids die of dehydration. This hit home to me just how important clean drinking water is. Most of us take it for granted, but it really is precious. Water is life.

You can go without water for 3 days. That’s it. I makes sense to store some for when your water supply gets contaminated or damaged in a disaster.

• Start with a goal of storing 1 gallon per person, per day, for 14 days. For a family of 4 that’s basically a 55 gallon barrel.
• Store the water in a cool, dry, dark place.
• Use PETE or food-grade plastic containers and avoid BPA plastics.
• Wash your containers before filling them up.
• Rotate the water regularly.
• Have a filter, tablets, bleach, steri-pen and calcium hypochlorite on hand for back-up.

Here are some items available through Amazon. I’ve use all of them. They all work.

• Water stored in a 55 gallon drum is the backbone of any water storage preparation. Yes, they are bulky and heavy, you can roll or move them with a hand truck if needed.
• The Berkey is a counter-top filtration system. Just add water to the top half of the filter and open the spigot below. It’s a nice system for an emergency, or if your tap water just sucks. It removes all the bad stuff.
• The Katadyn base camp is gravity fed, so no pumping! It’s great for small groups or families. I just hang it up in a tree or off a tent post and put my water container at the bottom of the outlet tube. In 5-10 minutes, I’ve got a few liters of water filtered.
• The Hiker Pro is light and pumps pretty quickly for its size. It has a float on the intake tube so is rides right on top of your water source, keeping it out of the silt and mud.
• I have friends that used the Steri-pen in Haiti and were very pleased with it. Just make sure you have back-up batteries.

These are all highly reviewed items that will serve you well in your water preparations. Hope that helps.

-Prepster411