Be Prepared: Where To Find Water and Water Sources in an Emergency

We are talking about water right now as part of our Be Prepared theme.  We will be covering many topics but water is so vitally important in any emergency or disaster; as a result, it is one that needs lots of special attention and ideas to help you find, store and have safe drinking water for you and your family…. and all at an affordable price too!

This is one area where we want to keep the ideas “flowing” as we know many of you have some fantastic ideas, so please share so that it is a help for everyone that reads and so that everyone can use the resources that they have and get many ideas.

We have talked about 3 thing that we think are very smart investments into an emerency water supply that are very affordable.  We know that there are many products out there, but we had 2 main goals in mind:

1. Price
2. Storage Space Needed

Both the concern for money and space needed to prepare for emergencies was at the top of your list as to the things that prevent you from preparing.  We want to do our best to solve your problems and get you prepared.

So the three items that we have talked about so far are:

1. WaterBOB – easily store 100 gallons of emergency water supply with this handy dandy item and the storage space required is about that of a cereal box!  The investment is less than $25!

2. Lifestraw – a perfect filtering option for 1,000 liters of drinking water from almost any source and it is around $20 and is just PERFECT!

3. Water purification tablets – that allow you to purify 360 gallons of water with a small bottle of tablets for around $6.50 – $9!

So the next thing we want to talk about it other places to find water.  The WaterBOB will hold 100 gallons, but since we recommend having a plan for water for 90 days – you are going to need more than 100 gallons of water if there is more than 1 in your household.   FEMA recommends 1 gallon of water per day per person, for our family of 7, we need 630 gallons!

We personally have 2 WaterBOBs as we have 2 tubs and so this gives us 200 gallons.  The water purification tablets or LifeStraw will also make this already safe source even safer and more pleasant to drink.

But where can someone find more water than this??  200 Gallon wouldn’t be enough for our family.

Here’s some ideas:

• Use the water reserve in your water heater – this can supply you up to 60 additional gallons (turn it off and drain from the bottom in an emergency).
• Drain all of the water reserved in your pipes.  You can do this by turning on the facet in the highest place in your home and then turning on the faucet in the lowest point in the home and collecting the water in a storage container.

• Think of additional sources around your home, such as ice cubes, bottled water, water beds, swimming pool, hot tub, toilets, etc. You can collect all of these sources and purify and filter with 2 of the options we shared above.
• Also consider all of the other liquids in your home such as juices, flavored water and sport drinks, etc. as they can provide some hydration too.

• Collect buckets of water from nearby creeks, canals and other bodies of water. The better source is a flowing source of water vs. stagnant.
• Collect water with rain buckets or official rain collectors from an outside source. There is a lot of options available with this and you could invest in an official system, or simply place buckets out underneath your rain gutters.
• If the emergency happens in winter and you live where snow falls, snow can be used – although you’ll find out quickly that it takes a lot of snow to produce a little water (of course, depending on the water content of the snow)! When it melts in your bucket, purify and filter it for drinking.

What ideas do you have for finding water in an emergency?

Now this doesn’t complete this topic. There are a few more things we still plan to discuss with this topic.  We also will continue to discuss options for water storage for those that have the room available to store water and how to do this safely as well as other cleansing and purifying options!

Photo Credits: Snowcrest.net, ophinc.com 

See the full Be Prepared Series, Articles and Topics for many tips and ideas in all areas of life!