I understand that there is probably no one-step-approach to getting safe drinking water. Boiling seems to be the closest, and least convenient, method to accomplish this. Filtering plus iodine (or other chemical) would work as well.

After a hurricane, fresh water will most likely be mixed with salt water. As far as I know, distilling is the only way to handle that. Except maybe for expensive desalination setups, which most people won't have access to. But distilling is still possible, although even less convenient to simple boiling. It would seem helpful to be set up for distilling in advance of any emergency situation.

In an emergency situation is there any way to effectively deal with contaminants though? Oil, other petroleum products, chemicals, etc.? Charcoal filtering may help to some extent, distilling might help some as well, but are these treatments enough? If you have no other source of water to choose from, can chemical/petroleum contaminated water be made safe?