Start Prepping For Survival With Water Storage
Updated: Jun 1
Water is Essential To Survival Prepping
Your first instinct may be to make sure you have enough food for many emergencies involving your home. And I don't want to downplay that. However, typically, people are only able to go a few days without food. That number could be substantially lower in the scorching heat of the summer... like it is now. So, make sure you take a hard look at what it might take to have adequate water storage for you and yours.
To kick things off, how much water do you need to store? Well, Ready.gov recommends that you store a minimum of one gallon of water for every person in your household for several days. So, we're looking at probably five to seven days as a good start. That water will cover the obvious activity of drinking, but some of it may also go towards keeping things at least a little bit sanitary.
Why Is Water Storage A Concern?
Well, this is a good question. After all, the tap is abundant isn't it? Well, maybe it is right now. But how long might that last if the power went out due to a bad storm in your area? In some places, storms and flooding occur more often than the area's residents might like. Often, a drinking water facility will use electricity to process water so that it's fit to drink. This includes pumping it to the top of a tall, round tower. You've probably seen some of them from the road. They often have the town's name on them.
After pumped, they are gravity fed to homes, businesses, etc. down stream. They may have pumps to help the water along for remote locations. Gravity feeding means the water doesn't stop flowing at the same time as the power turning off. But it will eventually if people keep using it, and with no power in the area, there won't be anymore pumped to the water towers. You can probably see where this is heading. You probably won't have to worry about not having water if you're prepared. So, let this be your call to action to get started.
Practical Survival Prep Tools For Water Storage
If you can't tell already, Practical EHS Biz LLC is all about practical ways to achieve goals. So lets look at a couple: storage containers and bath tub storage bags.
Storage Containers
The containers I tried were five gallons each and came in a pack of four. They had dust covers that can be removed as well as having snug fitting caps. They came with spouts and a vent that allows water to flow better when poured. To ensure the caps are on snugly, they have cap wrenches. So, they came with a good amount of useful items, and I was able to stack them up to four high when they were full of water. While the product description said the manufacturer says they can be stacked that high, the recommendation is to stack them only two to three high. That seems reasonable to me. Five gallons of water is around 40 pounds after all.
I liked that they were of a stacking design as that helps ensure water storage takes up a relatively small footprint. In order to make sure that the water lasts, preservative drops can be added. The ones I've looked at usually advertised keeping the water preserved for about five years. So, if you want to make sure you know when you need to use or change the water, I'd recommend labeling the jugs with the expiration date when you fill them. While not cheap, they look to be pretty sturdy and a good way to ensure you have water when you need it.
Just in case you didn't believe that the jugs were sturdy, here's some proof.
Bath Tub Water Storage
Something cool and relatively inexpensive are these bath tub liners. They have an inlet port with a plastic tube/bag that fits over the faucet. It has a large capacity sitting at around 100 gallons for the one I tried. It has a second port with a siphon style pump to extract the water from the bag. The plastic was advertised as no being a candidate for containing BPA and it feels pretty durable. This is a great tool to use to get a lot of water storage in a pinch. If you hear that power outages are expected due to a storm coming, you can put this in, fill it up, and have clean drinking water. You don't even have to clean your bath tub first.
When using it, you'll have to run the water fairly slowly. If you run it too fast to fill the bag up, it might bind and damage the inlet faucet bag. If the emergency passes, you may have more water in your bath tub than you need, and I didn't find it particularly easy to empty it. Still, it works as advertised as near as I can tell. While it takes up a bath tub, in an emergency, it's high on the water storage capacity and fairly low on the expense. It wasn't hard to use, so consider this for a useful tool to have in your survival prep tool box.
Survival Prep Works Best Before Disaster Strikes!
The weather can be as violent as it can be unpredictable. If you lose power, you could be out of it for hours, days, or even weeks. But, if you are able to read this blog post, chances are you still have power and water available to you. So, get a move on on for making your water storage preparations today. You need to plan how much water you'd need for your household for around a week at least. You'll need to figure out where to store it and if you're going to preserve it. There are definitely water storage options out there. I'll provide you with two of them right here. As an Amazon Associate, I may receive commission from qualifying purchases. With that said, check them out and get prepping!
5 Gallon Water Storage Stackers
Bath Tub Water Storage
