There’s an amazing magic trick that takes place every day in millions of American homes. Go to your nearest sink and turn a knob or raise a lever, and presto! Clean, clear water!
Holy smokes, and you can make it run hot or cold! How does it work? Where does the water come from? Who the hell cares?! It’s clean water! All the water you want!
Presto! Kool-Aid for the kids! Abracadabra! Ice cubes for a shaken margarita! Shazam! A hot shower! Hocus-pocus! Flush the commode! Water the lawn! Have a wet t-shirt contest!
Most Americans, even in desert climates, are blessed with having easy access to drinking water. In much of the world, however, access to potable water is a luxury. To give you an example, at my old newspaper job, we all pitched in so that a co-worker going on a mission trip to Haiti could buy a small village a donkey so that the kids could go to school instead of spending their whole day walking the umpteen miles back and forth to the distant well.
(Before I delve into the deep stuff, we named the donkey Edward R. Burro. I loved that.)
As far as prepping goes, water isn’t nearly as sexy as reaching Mongolia on your ham radio or playing with your AR-15. But you die in three days without it.
No Water, No Hope
So what’s your plan if the magic stops and the water stops running, either temporarily or permanently? Do you have a plan to get the water you and your family need? And more importantly, can you trust it? You don’t have to be adrift at sea to be surrounded by water that you can’t drink.
If the power grid goes down and stays down, it will not take long before water towers for municipal water systems run dry. If the disaster is an earthquake that has damaged towers and ruptured pipes, your water supply could be cut off immediately. Even if you have a private well, your pump needs power. No power, no water.
Access to clean water has to be a prepper’s top priority.
If you’re only worried about a minor disruption from a natural disaster, putting up enough water for your family won’t be much of a hassle. It becomes a much bigger problem if you’re worried about a prolonged or permanent disruption, especially if you live in an arid region.
Don’t Drink Doo-Doo
Worse yet, even if supply isn’t an issue for you, there’s the matter of making sure it’s safe to drink.
You have a nice big artificial lake in the middle of your subdivision? That’s just dandy, except for the fact that you’re surrounded by members of the Generally Dumb Public who have absolutely no concept of modern sanitation because they’ve never had to give it any thought. Aside from all the microscopic beasties and the lawn chemicals already in that water, I promise you it will be a week at most before your neighbors are using that lake as a combination laundromat and toilet.
Even if you live in the middle of nowhere and don’t have to worry about the neighbors going boom-boom in your water supply, you shouldn’t automatically assume that isolation will equate to pristine water (beaver fever, anyone?).
Regardless of the level of preparedness you’re seeking, you need to have two things to survive for more than a couple of days: a supply of water, and a way to purify it to make it fit for drinking, cooking and bathing.
In future posts, I’ll delve into finding water sources, and economical ways to treat it to ensure that you can safely drink and bathe with it.