Water Storage

I am looking for some recommended references about emergency water storage.

I've looked at the FEMA publication ARE YOU READY? but I'd like to know if there are other sources out there.

Thanks,

Blake
www. outdoorquest.biz

Cody Lundin's "When All Hell Breaks Loose" has some great info in it.


(sidenote: I watched video of a lady falling into a kiddie pool last night and it got me thinking about this topic too. Thanks for bringing it up Blake!)

I have a rain barrel in the basement, filled with rain water. An aquarium filter keeps it from getting nasty. I mostly use it as a source of water for my house plants and Bonsai, since we have really hard water and plants don't like it. But it would be quite useful in an emergency too. I have a rain barrel outside in the summer too, but that obviously won't work in MN in the winter.

Just talked to someone who has friends in Japan, including an 80 year old guy who lives in Sendai. Turns out that he had a big open barrel in his backyard that he used for storing water, and when the earthquake hit - that became his major (and only) water source. It saved him.

Bottom line ... store water!
You can worry about the fine details later, but even if the water tastes scummy, the essential thing is just to have some. :-)

Pete #2

Good point!!

Please make sure if you have any form of smooth plastic or any other very smooth material containers open in your backyard to collect water that you put metal screen over it to prevent rodents and other small animals from getting in. Not only will this contaminate your water they can very well drown since they cannot scale the smooth sides OR jump out from the amount of water withen.

Good point Frisket!

Good point Frisket!

I thought I'd get a couple of blow-up kiddie pools for water collection in an emergency. Keeping birds and rodents out could be a problem. We're not allowed rain barrels where I live but I could keep one in the garage (with a rigged siphon hose) and keep that covered. Think I'm going to get one anyway and use something less conspicuous to collect rainwater to transfer in. (5 gallon buckets maybe?)

When we lost city water a few years ago (due to flooding) my wife and I started by collecting rainwater from our downspouts in small plastic containers and quickly repurposed some large rubber maid storage containers as makeshift rain barrels. Worked OK but with 6 downspouts and 2 people we were quite busy while it rained and "lost" more water than we collected.

The next day I went to the local hardware store and bought some PVC discharge hose, 1.5"ID and very flexible, and rigged it up to the sump pump discharge with some duct tape and an 18 gallon rubber maid container as a "rain barrel". Worked great and collected about 7 gallons every time the sump ran. A little more tinkering would have reduced the spill rate but wasn't worth the effort since I had something like 150 gallons of rain/sump water sitting in on my deck by this point.

Nice thing about it is that the 40-50 gallon rubbermaid containers don't look like rain barrels and come with lids for keeping things out of the water.

- Eric

I've posted this a couple of times already, but in case there might be a new member... if you are fortunate to have lead time as in the case of a hurricane, a Rubbermaid trash barrel in your bathtub or shower allows you access to water with which to flush the toilet (pour slowly into bowl... try this before you use the toilet) and water to wash with... there is room to stand and still have a drain for the rinse water in the shower stall... a second barrel under the eaves fills pretty quickly and has yet to be moved by the wind

I have a couple of the blue 6gal water containers with spigots ... water is rotated out at the beginning of each hurricane season

I've yet to try out my Sawyer .1 micron 5gas bucket filter

Good idea about using rubbermaid containers Eric. Thanks for the idea!

I just stockpile Coors and cheap whiskey.

(I jest: I have three 7-gallon HDPE water containers stashed in the garage. I'll add more when I have room.)

Perhaps consider using a Watersafe!

They make three sizes, a Watersafe Mini, 5 gallon sink/stand alone tank, Watersafe, 65 gallon bath tank, and a Watersafe Heavy Duty, 55 gallon stand alone tank.

All are easily filled, have closures, and outlet handpumps, but best of all, they pack small till you need them.

I saw these about a year ago and thought they were a sensible addition to a household kit.

Watersafe

WaterSafes are only good for one use, since you can't dry them out and mold will form.

One of the simplest water collection units is an above-ground swimming pool. A pool 48" deep x 12' across holds just under 3,000 gallons of water.

And keep in mind that there is a difference between algae and moss.

Algae is the stuff that grows in the water and makes it a cloudy green, and sometimes it forms in strings; this can be deadly toxic.

Moss grows on the sides of the water storage tank in clumps. Moss is a cleanser of water. It was discovered in WWI that soldiers whose wounds were packed with spaghnum moss had a higher survival rate than the wounds packed with cotton bandaging material. That has been translated into a new way of cleansing water .

That's a big plus for those of us who live in the PNW. It grows on anything that holds still long enough.

Sue