We can live without food for a long period of time. We may get lucky and not need any guns. Chances are we don’t really need a significant amount of cash on hand in our house. Water, however, is critical. The human body can not go very long without it. I consider this to be the most critical part of our preparations. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem that it will be that difficult to get prepared in this area – at least in regard to short-term survival. Having water for the long term if the infrastructure suffers a long term collapse is another issue altogether.
As far as I can tell, the following things need to be considered when putting together a water plan:
- Amount needed
- Possible sources
- Collection
- Transporting
- Storage
- Purification
Amount Needed
Assuming that you don’t have a source of water readily available (river, well, etc.), several books I have read recommend having a three-month supply of water stored. They also suggest having 2 gallons of water per person per day. Therefore, if these recommendations are followed, we would need 180 gallons per person. We have a family of 5, thus we would need a total of 900 gallons of water for a 3 month supply. That is a lot of water!
I don’t understand why we would need 2 gallons per person. Supposedly one gallon is for drinking, and the other gallon is for washing, cooking, sponge bathing, laundry, dishes, and so on. Who drinks a gallon of water per day? I would think it would be half that. A half gallon of water is 64 oz, or 8 cups. Also, I think we could get creative and get by with a half-gallon per person for the other water needs mentioned above. Therefore, for a 3 month supply that puts us at 450 gallons of water. We will probably bump that up to 550. That would be 10 55 gallon drums. I just don’t have room to store any more than that.
