Water is Life

Ok, you have your bug out bag, and your get home back completed, but now you have to start thinking about groceries. If you live in an urban environment or the suburbs like myself you aren’t really going to be able to head out if food gets short and kill something to eat. You are at the mercy of what supplies you stock up on, but what do you get??

By far the most important thing you can have is access to is clean water. If you have never heard of the rule of three here it is:

You can go three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food

An easy tool to remember is the water triangle

 

Water breaks down into three categories; procurement, storage, acquisitions.

Procurement

Procurement is the purchase of water. It is by far the easiest part of the water triangle. There are a lot of brands of bottled water out there, and if we are talking about an emergency situation they are all pretty much the same. You can pay anything from $4.99 to $2.99 per case of water. I would encourage everyone to maximize their dollars and purchase the cheaper water.

Storage

This leg of the triangle is pretty self explanatory. One rule to remember here is it is the more storage capacity you have the better. A very popular water storage method is the use of blue food grade 50 gallon storage containers. They can be purchased used but you have to make sure your rinse them well. If you aren’t comfortable with how clean you think you can get them, then purchase the new ones. In both instances, they are relatively inexpensive.

Acquisitions

Acquisitions is different in procurement because procurement involves prepackaged water from commercial sources. Aquisitions is the sourcing of fresh water for non conventional sources. This could be rain catch, natural sources, or water heaters and toilet tanks. Aquisitions made in the area of water means all water will need to be sanitized. Always boil water that comes from a non bottled source. It is better to err on the side of caution than to catch a water borne illness.

There are many products out there on the market for water treatment or filtering. If you are interested in something that is good to have when your are on the move The Sawyer Mini Water Filteration System is a great buy.

They carry them at Walmart for about $20.

Another product that I personally carry is The Coleman Portable Aqua with PA Plus for water treatment.

No matter what, neither of these products would be my first choice. I will always boil water for drinking if possible. This was just a very brief article about water, and we encourage everyone to do their own research. Knowledge is power….all the expensive gear in the world is worthless if you don’t have the knowledge to us it.