Boots and Roots

So far, we have outlined the basic steps to surviving a winter power outage, and have dealt with the issue of shelter in-depth.  This week, we will talk about water—where to find out, and how to treat it.

The general rule of thumb, for survival needs, is 1 gallon per person per day, for drinking and cooking.  5 gallons per person per day, for drinking, cooking, and cleaning (bathing, washing clothes, doing dishes).  The 1 gallon/person/day obviously is weather-dependent—this amount will increase in the summer.  I would never store LESS than 1 gallon/person/day, and based on the events of the last few years, I’d make sure to have at least a week’s supply for everyone—or at least have a way to obtain and purify that much water.

The easiest source for clean water is the grocery store or one of the places where you can buy ice and refill your water jugs.  Don’t buy cases of the individual bottles—that is way too expensive.  Those are fine for daily drinking and carrying around.  But for emergency use and storage, buy gallon jugs of water, the big 5-gallon jugs, or fill up food-safe containers with tap or well water (buckets, mason jars, juice jugs, milk jugs, pickle jars, etc—just thoroughly wash before filling up with water).  You can even buy collapsible jugs.  Buckets are nice because they can be stacked (if the lid is strong enough), as can these water storage containers.  One thing about tap water is we know it is chlorinated.  If this is a negative for you, then just leave your containers open for about 24 hours.  Chlorine is a gas, and will dissipate.  After 24 hours, you have chlorine-free water that you can seal and put away.  Depending on the type of container that you’re storing water in, you will probably want to purify your water when you’re ready to use it.  Provided your water is clean when you seal it, glass and stainless steel will keep your water clean and ready to drink.  Plastic, on the other hand, could possibly leach chemicals into your water over time, especially if containers are exposed to sunlight and/or extreme temperatures. For sure, these sources should either be used or dumped and refilled every 6 months, OR if you forget or choose not to, just purify your water before using (boiling, LifeStraw/Sawyer system, etc—read on below!)

Other emergency sources of water:

• Rainfall
• Snowmelt
• Your water heater
• Your toilet’s tank (NOT the bowl!  And, only provided you don’t use the toilet cleaner tabs)

We’ll talk about purifying water and making it safe to drink in a sec, but right now, again, we’re just working on sourcing water.

Rain is, by far, the second easiest way to accumulate water.  If you have gutters, remove the bottom downspout—the one that moves the water away from the house.  Place a bucket, bowl, or whatever container you have, and start collecting water.  Replace as each container fills up.  You can gather rainfall from leaves (tedious, but possible), you can set out containers to catch rainfall, you can hang up a trash bag or tarp to catch rainfall—bonus points if you assemble it so it can empty into a bucket or barrel!  You can install a whole rainfall catchment system with rain barrels and everything.  These methods are as cheap or as expensive as you want them to be.  Obviously, if you are gathering straight rain runoff from your roof, gutters, leaves, or from any other surface besides the open sky, you’ll need to filter your water before treating it, and treat it before drinking.

Snow—or ice, for that matter—can be collected as well.  But you have to understand a few things about it:

1. Don’t eat yellow (or brown!) snow.  Obviously.
2. The amount of water in snow is dependent on a variety of factors, from humidity, to outdoor temps, to how hard-packed the snow is, to your specific region.  This water-to-snow factor is called the “snow ratio”.
3. The snow ratio here in North TX can be as high as 6:1 (6 inches of snow = 1 inch of water), but realistically is closer to 10:1 or even 12:1.  So if you gather snow in a 32-oz mason jar, you’re probably only going to end up with 3ish ozs of water.

Water can be collected from your hot water tank, and even from your toilet’s tank. 

NOW, I absolutely wouldn’t try to get water from a toilet tank unless my life literally depended on it.  I’ve drunk water from some pretty sketchy sources before–muddy Texas lakes, cattle stock tanks, gritty springs, stale algae-covered ponds—I even scooped water out of the top of a chicken waterer once when I had a coughing fit in the middle of our pasture.  But there’s something about getting it from a toilet—even if it is supposedly clean—that is a hard pass for me!!  BUT, if you’re desperate, do what you gotta do to stay alive.  Or as my oldest daughter says, “hydrate, don’t die-drate.”  Sourcing water from your toilet tank is as easy as pulling off the lid, and scooping it out. 

Sourcing water from your water heater is a little more involved.  Directions can be found here.

There are several ways to purify water.

• Sawyer, Sawyer Mini (my personal favorite—all adults in our family have one), Lifestraw or other emergency survival straw
• Backpacking water filters
• Boiling
• Bleach (regular, plain ol’ household bleach—not the concentrated or scented stuff)
• Iodine or other purification tabs
• Berkey or other countertop filter
• DIY water filter

Survival Straws/Backpacking Filters

If you choose to go with any of the Sawyer water filters, Sawyer Minis, Lifestraws, countertop filters, backpacker-type water filters, or DIY water filters, you do not need to filter or take additional steps to purify the water.  Just follow the directions for use (again, practice BEFORE you need these skills!!), and you’re good to go!

If you decide, or need, to bleach, boil, or use iodine or other purification tabs to purify water, you will need to filter larger debris from the water first.  You can do this by pouring water through some kind of filter—this can be a coffee filter, a bandana, a tea towel, or cotton t-shirt.  From there:

Boiling: bring water to a fast, rolling boil, then let boil for 1 minute.  Keep the lid on to retain every drop of water.  Boiling won’t remove chemicals or metals, but it will kill bacteria, protozoa, and other yuckies.

Bleach: for clear or mostly clear water, add 8 drops (1/8 teaspoon) of bleach per gallon (save those milk jugs or water jugs, y’all!), shake gently, and let sit for 30 minutes. 

If the water is cloudy, add 12-16 drops of bleach per gallon.  At the end of 30 minutes, smell the water.  If it smells just slightly of bleach, you’re good to go.  If you cannot smell bleach at all, add 4 more drops at a time, shaking gently, and waiting 30 minutes in between each addition until you get that slight bleach scent.  The presence of bleach scent means that all the potential nasties are dead and neutralized. 

In a survival situation, where you are sourcing water from possibly questionable sources (snow, your roof, your neighbor’s decorative fish pond, or a stock tank), the last risk you want to take is consuming water that has giardia or cryptosporidium or some other bacteria or protozoa that will cause all kinds of gastro-intestinal upset.  Save the colon cleanse for a less critical time, please!!

Iodine/purification tabs: Add the appropriate # of tabs for the amount of water you are purifying (follow instructions that come with the bottle/packaging), swirl, and let sit for 30 minutes.  These iodine tabs also come with a taste and color neutralizer, so you don’t have the funny taste or weird color of iodine.  I’ve carried this brand with me on every backpacking and camping trip I’ve gone on for the last 20+ years, and I keep some in my car as well.  The drawback is they don’t kill protozoa or remove chemicals, but if you’re not super concerned about your water source (i.e. sourcing water from your water heater, directly from the open sky, or clean water that you collected a few months ago in a 5-gallon bucket), these are great to have on hand.  They can be pricey, though, so if you’re sourcing or purifying water for your family, the cost of these can add up quickly.  Boiling and bleaching are much more cost-efficient.

If you are unsure of the source of your water, or it’s integrity, my general rule of thumb is “when in doubt, boil it out.”  If I had a 55-gallon rain barrel that has been sitting full, but unused for months and months, and I didn’t have my Sawyer Mini on me, I would boil or bleach the water, and would have no problem drinking it.  Or for me, realistically, I’d just use my Potable Aqua iodine tabs and call it a day!  But if I was concerned, boil or bleach, and be done!

So that’s it!!  It’s a LOT of information, and a LOT of words, but your homework assignment is easy.  Look around and see what sources of water you have available to you currently.  Do you need more? How/where are you going to get more?  Is water easily accessible for you?  Do you NEED to store it, or do you already have, say, a stock tank or pond or something on property or on a neighbor’s property? Or in your neighborhood?  What do you already have on hand for purifying water? Bleach? The ability to build a fire or light a camp stove, and boil?  Do you have a way to filter water?  That answer is yes, by the way, unless you’re a nudist. 😉

Next week, we start getting into what makes an emergency into an adventure—FOOD!!!!  To me, this is the point where, once the emergency is over, you can look back and be proud that you not only survived, but thrived.  You might have lived on canned chili or whatever—and it might have even been cold canned chili!—but, I bet, after your nerves were wound that tight over your situation, that that was the best darn canned chili you’ve ever eaten in your life!!  Stress does a number on our bodies and our minds, for sure. But overcoming challenges has an amazing way of building resilience, and making us “anti-fragile.”  And that’s a good thing.