I'm having trouble deciding on water quantities and storage for our 72-hour kits. <br><br>I'm looking at the kits as a BOB for a natural disaster - e.g., a tornado levels our house & we have to stay in a shelter for a few nights. I'm not really anticipating hoofing any major distances with it - maybe that's a bad assumption!<br><br>Hubby & I have two kids under 10. <br><br>I wanted the standard 3 gallons/person, but I'm having trouble packing everything in our backpacks, much less 12 gallons of water.<br><br>Any advice? Toss everything else out and pack the water? Get a couple of Camelbaks to help out? Get rid of the extra baggage <<kids :-) >> until they can schlep their own water????<br><br>TIA, looking forward to a good reality check from everyone.<br><br>Mamabear

mamabear,<br><br>Funny that you brought this subject up. I live in the upper midwest (Wisconsin)and just last night I was talking to my brother who lives in California (Stockton area) about this very subject. After hashing out the options we could only come up with the following. <br><br>Have at a minimum 3 days @ 1 gal /person plus some for pets -- in the house this is for staying put but you can travel via car with the containers BUT if you need to leave on foot or bike then have the ability to carry around a days worth by using camelbacks or whatever.<br><br>Thanks for the question 'cause I was going to ask everyone for suggestions. What other options are people using? <br><br>CJ Reddun

Im in the process of making up some BOB bags ,in ours i will have 1 days water and then a clear collapseable vinal type water container that holds aprox 3 gallons , that is deflated in my pack, for when you get to an area that you will be staying at you have the ability to purify larger amounts of water at a time, but have some thing that compresses fairly small , i have 1 of these in my wife and my BOB bags, because there is 4 of us to get water ready for.<br>Yukon

In general, I would store plenty, more than you would contemplate backpacking. If you travel by vehicle, the weight is basically irrelevant and you won't have to scrimp. If you then have to hoof it, at least you have options and you can tank up before you start walking. Your physical and your mental capability declines rapidly when water supplies are inadequate.<br><br>What is inadequate? It will depend a lot on the season and local weather conditions - your needs can vary by a factor three (I have seen conditions where three gallons a day per person would be marginal, although probably enough). Even in the desert water requirements can vary from very high to minimal (winter, spring just after a major storm). You can always toss or leave behind what you don't need. If you are walking, your requirements will be much higher than if you are sedentary or driving.<br><br>Store water in smaller containers - one to two liters are about right. They can be carried easier, either in the hand or tied to the outside of a pack if you are really loading up. A leaking small container is less of a problem than a leaking lare container. I prefer recycled plastic beverage containers to fiddly things like hydration systems and collapsible bladders - they are just too likely to leak - the one exception seems to be Platypus bags, with which I have had no problems. It is very hard to buy a better water container than the one or two quart Gatorade bottles and they come prefilled. Incidentally I have found that dilute Gatorade works very effectively for me. In hot conditions, about half my liquid is dilute GA, and the rest is water.<br><br>If you are dealing with heat and water supply is a concern, you can travel much more efficiently by traveling at night (which may also present problems), or at least at dusk, or better yet, from daybreak until about 9 Am or so. Your water consumption will decline drastically if you avoid the hot daytime hours.<br><br>I guess I have a real thing about water - I got extremely thirsty a few times in twenty-five years in the Arizona outdoors - I am still rehydrating here on the California coast.<br>Water is one of those things you don't appreciate until you have been deprived a time or two - then you realize how easy it is to keep an adequate supply around.<br>

Water in a commmunity evacuation comes down to 2 uses; consumption and basic hygiene. Guess what gets sacrificed? Water is heavy and bulky. There are no shortcuts. Carry what you can, and mirror the kit levels; small foil envelopes in a pocket, a personal canteen and larger containers. I was evacuating horses from a major ( arson set ) fire in Northern L.A. county today. Our truck trailer held personal canteens, my 21/2 gallon G.I. unit, 25 gallons in a saddlerack/ water carrier and 5 gallons in a Brit surplus water can. We encountered a ground crew that had exausted their personal canteens hours before. My brit unit is still up there with them.A good idea is to check with FEMA and other agencies. Find out what resources are available for the hazards of your locale.

You just saved me pecking out a long post, because that's about what I was going to say - thanks. Obviously, I concur... Interesting that you do the same thing with Gatorade/All Sport as I do - 50/50 with water and use the bottles afterwards. They're as good as Nalgene bottle for durability and are cheap. Plus there's this handy groove in just the right place to tie a jug loop onto so you can sling them...<br><br>Regards,<br><br>Tom

Bob's need to be flexible for multiple sorts of scenarios.<br><br>1) Home destroyed or unusable but town stable:<br>This might be the case after a tornado or earthquake.<br>In this case if you have a tent and supplies cached outside your home (in the 4X4 or the shed or burried) you may want to forgo the joys of shelter life and just camp in the yard. Large containers serve this purpose admirably. If you use anything larger than 5 gallons then you will need a pump to retrieve the water. I wouldn't. Several 5 gallon containers should be adequate storage and easy to rotate etc...<br><br>2) Home unusable, home district threatened or unusable<br>This might be the case due to HazMat spill, Wild fire, civil Unrest, or terrorist activity<br>In this case you will want to have the ability to move quickly which is incompatible with large quantities of water. In this scenario you might be able to count on some water supplies at the destination shelter so would be fine with enough to travel to the shelter and some means of purification once there. Canteens, camelbacks, old pop bottles etc are fine for this scenario. More water that you bring to a public shelter will likely be appropriated for the common good and though that would quite generous, you might serve your family better to use the pack space to bring less sharable more usefull items.<br><br>3) Home unusable, town unstable, infrastructure in disarray<br>This might be the case after large-scale terrorist activity, civil collapse, wide-spread Wild Fire, Hurricane or Earthquake or flood.<br><br>In these cases you might be on your own for a long time and need to protect your supplies and self. Some form or larger storage backed up by carriable containers would be best here. Take what you can carry for a hike or drive if you are lucky enough to be able to drive and go set up safe haven. Return to retrieve what you can since that will likely be easier than finding more.<br><br>In all cases a variety of containers as Chris suggests is prudent and storing all of this outside of the main structure if at all possible so that it will survive whatever event forces the evacuation.

Mini-me,<br><br>Nice post. One comment:<br><br><< More water that you bring to a public shelter will likely be appropriated for the common good >><br><br>I strongly disagree, at least if we are talking in the USA. That would be a FUNDAMENTAL violation of the constitution and is NOT the sort of action that I am aware of happening in at least recent times. There certainly are practical constraints in emergency operations - "I'm sorry, sir, but your 27 cows MUST stay outside...", but siezure of private property is verbotten. <br><br>If you are certain of such an instance happening in a publically managed emergency operation, I would really like to know when, where and the particulars, please.<br><br>Thanks!<br><br>Tom

Tom,<br> I am in the US. I haven't had to exist in a shelter as yet. Your point on the legalities of the situation are likely correct. OTOH, I would suspect that if an emergency shelter environment is anything like a homeless shelter then a stockpile of 5 gallon water containers beside your bed while the rest of the shelter is getting thirsty would be very hard to protect and if you succeeded you would quickly become disliked. My only experience with these things is with homeless shelters. In those environments, if you want something to remain yours you wear it or watch it. Walk out of the room without it and, if it is even slightly useful, it will be someone elses possesion next time you see it.

To all of the people who so kindly offered ideas and suggestions, thank you! You've given me much to think about and, more importantly, a direction to focus on.<br><br>Thanks again.<br><br>Mamabear