Water Water Everywhere

During a particularly nasty typhoon, on my mission, we lost power. Now that really is not all that big of a problem. We ate the food in the fridge (which we never kept all that much) and just had to suffer the humidity without the comfort of electric fans. However like most places in the world our water came from a water tower. No power = no water in the tower. Since the typhoon was so bad that it knocked out the power for a week we had the interesting experience of not having running water for 5 days. Fortunately we were able to buy 6 gallons before the shelves of the local store were cleared. We expected the water to be out for a day at most. So by day 3 our measly 1.5 gallons per person were running rather low. This made for some very thirsty and very dehydrated elders.

Now many of you may think that because we do not live in a developing country that we will not have problems like this. We feel safe here. However it would not take that much for us to loose access to water. An extended blackout like the NE faced a few years back could do it. A break in a water main locally could do it. An earthquake (which can happen anywhere) could take out power and water for a huge area for a couple of days or more. There are plenty of things that could happen that could impair your ability to have access to water.

The solution is simple. Store a supply of water. The goal should be 1 gallon per day per person for 2 weeks or 14 gallons per person. You can do that through getting several flats of water bottles and putting them under a bed. You could store water in clean soda bottles. You could buy the large 2.5 gallon disposable jugs that have the spouts. If you use a water crock, make sure you always have a few extra jugs filled at all times. Or if you have a large family and room in a garage or somewhere else you could buy a couple of 50 gallon barrels. Although it would probably be wise to have some of your water supply in a more portable format like flats of water bottles.

You do not have to do this all at once. Start with a simple goal of having 1 gallon per person stored and add an additional 1 gallon per person per week. In three months you will have a full supply and not have to suffer like I did when we ran out of water.