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.