Emergency Water and Water Storage

There are many resources you can go to, to learn about safe water storage, including FEMA, the American Red Cross, EPA, and the CDC. Why store water? Most people will probably never need to use an emergency supply of water, but there is always the 'what if'? Sometimes water coming into homes becomes contaminated (I've heard of this happening a few times in the Phoenix area) and residents need to use other sources of safe water until the water is cleaned up. Also during natural disasters access to safe water can be difficult to find. Water is one of the most important things the body needs, next to air. The body is made up of a relatively large portion of water, roughly 60% give or take depending factors such as age and weight. Our bodies naturally lose about a quart of water a day which should be replaced. If not replaced, a person wouldn't be able to live more than one week. The hotter it is, the shorter amount of time they can live. So lets start off by talking about water storage containers:

1. 55-gallon food grade plastic drums.

Anything you store water in needs to be food-grade. The chemicals in other plastics may leach into the water, so first make sure that whatever you are using is food-grade. You would have to buy a pump or a siphoning hose to extract water from these barrels. I have been seeing more of these in the store with spigots built in near the bottom of the barrels. Much more convenient.
2. You can store water in waterbottles. This is also a nice way to store water. I personally recommend a mixture of #1 and #2. You can store a lot with  #1, but #2 is good too because the waterbottles are portable (#1 is too large to transport quickly and easily) if you had to evacuate quickly.
3. 5-gallon plastic containers
4. 5-6 gallon Mylar water storage bags placed in cardboard boxes.
5. 2-liter plastic drinking bottles that have been cleaned out. Do not use the milk jug type containers that you can buy water in. They breakdown over time. Trust me I did that when I was younger and found my carpet unknowingly soaked with water. Live and learn I guess.

How much water to store:
The recommendation that I see most often is to store at LEAST a 2-week supply of water at 1 gallon of water per day per person. So for one person a two-week supply would be 14 gallons. 7 for drinking, 7 for other purposes like cleaning and hygiene. If the weather is hot you might want to store more than this.

How to store water?
-It is recommended to store water away from petroleum, insecticides, and other strong chemicals so that the fumes do not leach into the water.
-It is also recommended that water be rotated out at least every 6 months. I have seen people go an entire year without changing water in their battels though and the water was still safe. I wouldn't go much longer than that. I have also seen people go 3 years before changing out the water in their barrels and their water turned to sludge. Yuck. So I think for sure no longer than a year for large barrels. For WATERBOTTLES it is recommended that you rotate it out yearly. However the expiration dates on some waterbottles (like Walmart's Purified Great Value brand) say the water is good for two years. My family has used water bottles slightly past this 2 yr expiration date and we have never got sick.
- Some people say not to store barrels on bare concrete. I personally don't think that this is important.
-When you store water you should add a small amount bleach to it. It is said that if you use water from a treatment plant you don't need to add bleach, which makes sense, since water treatment plants use bleach already to treat the water, but we add a little bleach anyway, just for good measure. If you are storing water from a personal well, you MUST add bleach to it. Here is the table we follow:
1 Quart - add 2 drops of bleach
1 2-liter bottle - add 4 drops of bleach
1 Gallon - add ~ 1/8 tsp of bleach
5 Gallon - add about 1/2 tsp bleach
55 Gallon Drum - about 5 tsp bleach
-Use only plain bleach that is 4-6% sodium hypochlorite. No pretty flowery smells.


If you run out of water here are some other ways to clean surface water:

1. BOILING. This is the safest way to disinfect water. You should boil water for 3-5 minutes. If the water is cloudy, strain it though a clean cloth or shirt before boiling it. Boiling is effective in killing even Giardia and Cryptosporidium.
2. WATER FILTERS. There are numerous water filters out there. It is nice to have a good one on hand just in case. If you use a filter with an absolute size of 1 micron or smaller, it will filter out giardia, cryptosporidium, and amoebas. If you chemically disinfect it as well it will be free of the most common enteric viruses.
3. CHEMICAL DISINFECTION. You can use, again, chlorine or iodine. If you use chlorine it must sit in the water for at least 30 minutes. However, chlorine and iodine are not completely effective is killing Giardia or Cryptosporidium. Again, if the water you are using is murky, you can filter it through a shirt first, then chemically disinfect it.
4. You can always use water that has evaporated after being boiled too. Though I don't think this water will contain minerals. Minerals are good for the body.

Other sources of Emergency water:
1. Liquid in canned Food.
2. Melted ice cubes.
3. Hot water heaters (as long as you turn off the water right after an emergency to prevent contamination)
4. Soft water tanks
5. House pipes.
6. Toilet tanks (not bowls - and this water MUST be purified). If chemicals have been added to the tank, it cannot be used.
7. Collect rain water in buckets or large tarps. If your tarps or buckets aren't cleaned, you should use one or more of the cleaning methods above.

Sources:
Probert, Leslie D. and Lisa L. Harkness. Emergency Food in a Nutshell. Orem Ut: Purely Simple Publishing, 2003. pp. 26-30.