We begin our year of preparing for emergencies with the most important task of all: Ensuring we will have access to water during a disaster. You can survive without water for only about three days, but after a major disaster you can expect to be without assistance for weeks. So let’s get this challenging task taken care of in the first month of the year.
Every person in your household needs at minimum 1 gallon of water per day for drinking, bathing, dish cleaning/laundry, food preparation and taking medications. Infants, young people, and older adults may require more. Don’t forget visitors, including service providers, who might be at your home when disaster strikes, and don’t forget pets and livestock.
Give yourself a challenge: Try to live on 1 gallon of water for 24 hours. Is it enough to meet your needs? If not, increase your estimate of what you need to store. Store enough for everyone for 30 days.
How to store water
After figuring out how much water you need, determine where it’s going to go. It should be stored to withstand a disaster and remain accessible and portable. Store it in a place that’s relatively dark and cool and protected from rodents. Make sure that your supply is raised above the floor in case of flooding. If you stack your water supply, secure it so that it can’t fall during an earthquake.
The easiest way to store water is in stackable 5-gallon tanks. Fill them with potable water, use water treatment and follow the procedures for sealing the tanks, and the supply will last five years.
If you live in an apartment, consider storing water for all residents in a common area. If you live in a prepared neighborhood, you and your neighbors could invest in large (55- to 10,000-gallon) tanks. If you live in an inundation zone or a small home, make an agreement with a neighbor to store water there.
Don’t use clear plastic for water storage as it breaks down quickly, and rodents can bite through it.
How to filter and purify water
Filter water by running it through a mesh screen or cheesecloth to remove sediment and debris. Purify water to remove bacteria, viruses and chemicals. There are several options:
•Gravity water filter. These filters remove chemicals, heavy metals, viruses, bacteria, parasites, bisphenol-A and PFOAs. A Life Straw gravity water filter removes viruses, bacteria, parasites and microplastics. Many manufacturers produce large-capacity gravity filters as well as portable filters. Compare the brands in terms of what they filter out, their speed, their capacity, how long they last and cost.
•Boiling. Boiling water will kill many pathogens. You need to boil it for a few minutes and then let it cool. It will not remove chemicals, and it won’t kill all bacteria.
•Bleach. Use 8 drops of unscented chlorine bleach per gallon of water. If the purified water doesn’t smell slightly of bleach, you need to add more. Chlorine bleach has only a six-month shelf life.
Learn more
If you use residential well water, consider attending the Bainbridge Prepares’ Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Team presentation March 23 from 2-4 p.m. at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art: Residential Water Wells: Survive and Prepare for Emergency Use.
For more, go to bainbridgeprepares.org/water.
Tune in next month to find out about the next most important task: building an emergency food supply.
Sarah Lane is the Community Outreach Team Lead for Bainbridge Prepares, which has a monthly column in this newspaper.