The boil water situation was resolved last night. We got a reverse 911 call about 6:15pm, which was nice as we got no such call to tell us to boil water.

Judging from comments on the local paper website, I'd guess half to 2/3ds of the people in town were clueless on how to boil water. I swear, I coulda made a small, very small, fortune on selling the recipes.

We just used an electric teapot, 2 liters, to quickly boil the water and put it into pitchers, then into the fridge. Not like we don't have a stack of bottled water in the garage anyhow, but this wasn't a "real" emergency.

Are you really saying half to two thirds of your local residents don't know how to make a cup of tea or soft boil an egg. Sorry I'm a little confused, how do these folks survive everyday life in a large metropolis like New York?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieGBkOdyMU

BTW its probably not a good idea to tell these folks where milk comes from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXCuGvsThEw

I guess this could really happen.

Not a bad idea.

A backpacking or camping type stove is in order as well. In a big storm, earthquake, terrorist attack, the gas and electricity might be knocked out as well as the water polluted.

HJ

I assume my gas supply will be interrupted by The Big One (or whatever). Fortunately my camp gear involves stoves ranging from Coleman two burners to canister stoves to the itty-bitty Tibetan Ti Wing. You gotta have heat....

Am-Fear: There was an article in the paper, two ladies were complaining about the price of bottled water, saying they couldn't afford it (altho one had an expensive weave and a cell phone in hand) and wanted the local water company to pay for it.

Several people chimed in, saying that the prices on bottled water had gone up. Altho, the local gas company was giving away bottled water, free, just show up and take home a 35 pack. But that would have entailed making an effort.

So I guess there are a lot of people who can't "boil water". I guess they eat out a lot, I don't know. It wasn't that big a deal to me, but appears the sky was falling for some people. They would really be up crap creek should something really bad happen.

What brand of bottled water are they drinking? The stuff out of the vending machine works out to be $9.30 / gal, but the local price for a no-name 1 gal PET bottle from Vons is a dollar + tax and CRV.

"Some bacteria are tougher than others, as Clostridium botulinum will survive boiling water for a considerable time, although the toxin is destroyed."

The way I understand it, the Clostridium botulinum bacteria is easily killed by boiling (212F) for a few minutes, and it cannot grow in the presence of oxygen.

But if the live bacteria are transferred to an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment, they will either turn into spores or spores will form [I'm not quite clear on this] and in that process of multiplication the toxins are produced. The spores are an alternate form of reproduction, and are extremely resistant to heat and other conditions.

Spores can survive 5 hours in boiling water, but can be inactivated in 4 minutes in an autoclave which provides pressurized steam (121°C, 15 psi).

So, even if you collect fresh water (contains oxygen) with Clostridium bacteria in it, it is usually harmless on its own, and boiling the water will take care of any problem.

And if I haven't got this straight, PLEASE correct me!

Sue

Some years back, we had a boil water advisory for almost a week and were glad that we had a 3 gallon SS pot. Even though we had bottled water stored, 4 people in a house can go through a large amount of potable water in a hurry as the tap water was contaminated enough that washing your skin or hair with it was not advisable until the water was boiled. The SS pot was always on the stove and topped up when needed then boiled, usually 2-3x times per day.

As for using a camping stove such as a Coleman propane 2 burner, they are slow (but better then nothing) to bring any significant amount of water to boil and cannot fit that large of a pot on them. It helps with the propane costs if you have an adapter to connect the Coleman stove to a 20 lb or 11 lb propane tank.

Yes. Having a large reservoir of potable hot water at hand is incredible helpful. Block your your hot water taps with zip-locks or similar and you'll see what I mean...

Think big. At our cabin (no running water, no electricity) we have a 25 liter pot with a tap. The pot sits on top of an old fashion wood stove. Love it

Some years ago I worked at a back country cabin. No running water unless you sprinted while carrying the buckets. We had an enormous enamelware coffee pot which sat on the wood stove day after day, providing the strongest coffee I have ever consumed...