Water Storage For The Ages

Water is an essential part of Food Storage and Emergency Preparedness.  Without water you will die within 48 hours.  Without continued clean water we die within two weeks. 

Basic Water Storage

Store water in juice jugs, 2 liter soda bottles, and 55 gallon blue barrels.  DO NOT STORE WATER IN THE GALLON JUGS THEY ARE SOLD IN AT THE STORE!!!!  You know the ones like milk jugs.  Also, do not store your water directly on or against concrete.  The chemiclas in the concrete will eat through the plastic and the water will take on the flavor of the cement (or anything it's stored by).  They say the blue barrels can go on cement but I still stick a scrap piece of wood or a few layers of cardboard under mine.

The goal, as set by leading preparedness expert Tim Woolf, is to have one 55 gallon barrel per person in your family.  In reality, after drinking and cooking this may last 2 weeks.  I am working on this and plan on sending each kid packing with their barrel and 400lbs of wheat as they get married.   Until you have a barrel per person, start filling soda bottles.  Then as you get the barrells you can recycle the pop bottles.

You should also have at least 1 gallon in every room in your home in case you are suddenly stuck in that room for an extended period of time (while emergency crews dig through the rubble). 

Treating your stored water is easy.  DON’T.  If you have city water that is pretreated then you do not have to add anything.  If your containers are clean then you shouldn’t have to rotate.  Now please continue reading, don’t stop here or you won’t have the whole picture.

Water Treatment

Like I said in the above paragraph, if you have city water you do not need to treat the water you put in your containers and you don't have to rotate, unless you want to.

The best single thing you can add to your food storage shelf is an under $20 bottle of powdered chlorine!  One bottle will clean enough water to supply your entire block with water for a month or more.  If 15 families in our ward had these then the entire ward would be set for several months.

To use this all you do is add ¼ teaspoon (let me repeat) 1/4 TEASPOON to a 55 gallon barrel of water from a good source (I’ll expand on that in a moment).  Put the lid on and let it sit for 24 hours.  If you want the chlorine smell and taste gone then let the barrel sit for another 24 hours without the lid.  Do the math:  1 barrel with chlorine/lid on, 1 barrel lid off, 1 barrel being used.

The limitation of this is it only kills biological contaminants.  It doesn’t cleeeeean the water.  Unless you know your water source is clean of non biological contaminants you also need a good filter that will take out the dirt, petroleum (gasoline/oil) and  the radioactive dust (I know you were thinking it).

Water Filtration

There are chemical filters, micro pour filters, bio sand filters, and any other kind of filter you can dream of.  Some very, VERY expensive and others homemade with stuff you can buy at the hardware store for a few dollars.

One of the best filters you can buy is the Aquarain.  It uses gravity and ceramic filters to purify up to 25 gallons a day.  The water needs to be free from debris but the filter will take everything else out. If you are interested go to their website at http://www.aquarain.com .  I also have a lady out of draper that buys these in bulk so she might have a better price.  Her email is preparednessproducts@comcast.net .  There is a problem with these:  The ceramic filters are extremely fragile.  One tiny crack and the filter is useless.

An awesome filter you can make at home is a sand filter.  It’s like taking the city’s water treatment plant and putting it in a Rubbermaid garbage can, or even a 5 gallon bucket.  Here is a basic diagram of a sand filter.  You can also look up videos on Utube.  OR if we have enough interested people, we can make this a ward activity.  The only thing I would add to my filter is a layer of “activated carbon” that you can buy at any pet store with a fish isle.

In Short

Start with filling the two liter soda bottle from family parties and stuffing them in the back of closets.  Then add blue barrels.  Then add a filter, or learn how to make one.   In an emergency (like Katrina or Japan) Start using your stored water while you collect water to start filtering:  you filter out the big stuff (a friend said “pick out the body parts” ewww!), send the water through your filter and then chlorine it to heck.