Pretty cool. I have two or three questions: Where does one get an empty sherry drum, does one get a llittle happy drinking the water from a sherry drum, and is there any sherry taste to the water???

You are so right.

I remember after the Northridge earthquake the same thing happened in our town.

No power so most stores closed. Water was contaminated due to broken sewer/water lines. Lucky we had bottled water at home.

One good thing, we found that the Pizza Man store was open without power, (still had gas), we got a large with everything on it. <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Power came back on after a couple of days. Couldn't drink the tap water for weeks until they flushed the system out, but you could use the toilet and take a shower. (If you didn't mind the smell <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />)

All plastics add chemicals to whatever gets stored in them...

The question is how much is too much...some plastics and even some applications differ widely. Also, what you store in them will affect leaching.

That said, we're talking about emergencies...some plastic laching may be preferable to death. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Farm supply stores carry heavy duty plastic 55 gallon drums with a brass faucet already cut into the lower level when it is in a vertical position. They are used to transport water to remote pastures for livestock.
The one I just bought has Greek Script on it and judging by the interior smell it originally contained olives. Top screws on with rubber gasket. How to get rid of olive smell and taste? Beats me, My few critters don't complain. $32.00, not bad, worth checking out.

Jon

Yep. In an emergency the stores are basically looted by the panicked hoarders. Imagine if it were a BIG emergency like a nuclear exchange or pandemic!

There is an interesting article here about maybe the one source of supplies that the panicked masses cannot readily loot. I think he has a point since there has to be a HUGE amount of resources here:
http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival-blog/scavenging-dumps-for-survival/

Thanks, when the time comes I will check the farm stores out. I wonder if a strong bleach solution, left in for a few days, would help with the smell/odor/taste???

I'm sure that bleach or initially soap, hot water, and agitation would take care of most of it. Perhaps bleach afterwards to sanitize. It wasn't dirty nor was the smell or taste terribly bad, just enough so you started thinking about zorba the greek! I rinsed it out really well and, as I said, use it to water cattle. I doubt you could smell it now that it has been filled and drained a dozen times. I am going to get a couple more and will clean them well before storage of emergency water. Note that I always chained it into my tractors front end loader bucket before filling it. Once full, you are not going to be moving it very much by hand. The one I got was very heavyduty, round, strong and water tight if you use the rubber gasket under the screw down lid.

Jon

Especially for non-drinking purposes, regular 33 gallon garbage cans or kiddie wading pools (covered) might be a reasonable way to store large quantities of water in the basement or yard. A 12 foot diameter, 3 foot deep kiddie pool holds over 2000 gallons of water.

so, how long does bottled water last before it becomes undrinkable? The labels on my bottled water say good until january 2009. Just thinkig of having some extra around for the winter months.

Thanks.

Factory stuff, I have no idea. What is on the label I guess.

I once got some canned water, supplied by a beer maker after a major earthquake hit our area. My plan was to hang onto it as emergency water, but in less than a year the cans started to swell, one even popped...