Water — it’s what most people run out of first. Although food and heat come to mind quicker for most of us, potable water for drinking and cooking, and water for hygiene are essential during an emergency. Many sources, like FEMA, recommend 1 gallon/day/person, but a more generous rule of thumb is to store a minimum of 14 days worth of water allowing for 2 gallons per day for everyone in your household. So that works out to be 28 gallons in total per person for a two week period.

Two gallons a day provides you with more room for error and accommodates unanticipated needs, like hot weather, illness or needing water to perform some necessary cleaning task. Since the hardest part of preparations is the planning and implementation (not quantities) having access to water beyond the minimum required for survival is a prudent idea. As with all preparations, if you expect to shelter others who are not normally part of your household, be sure to include them in your water planning. And don’t forget the houseplants and pets…including the fish!

Water access during an emergency breaks down into three categories:

  1. Pumped ground water: municipal water, submersible electric wells, manual (non-electric) pumped wells;
  2. Stored water: bottled, water tank, cistern, or water storage containers; or
  3. Surface Water: lakes, streams, ponds, snow, rain or dew.

Pumped Ground Water

Depending on the emergency at hand, various scenarios requiring water preparedness come to mind. Assuming you don’t need to evacuate your home, the biggest variable is whether there is any electricity available to treat and/or pump water.

Being able to pump water from either a municipal water supply or a residential well via a submersible pump will require electricity. In the case of the municipal water, there will need to be power at both your house and the water treatment plant. So, living in town off the grid won’t be a viable work around for this dependency during an extended power outage – you will need to store water.

If you have your own well and have an independent power source to pump water into your home’s water system, then you’re done — and you should consider how to safely share your access to water. A water sharing strategy must be accomplished without compromising your water reservoir or overstressing your water delivery system. Clean water storage containers will be required, which if someone hasn’t stored water on their own they will be unlikely to have hanging around their house, so you’ll need to put some away yourself for this purpose. Transportation can also be a barrier in water sharing, so take this into consideration if you come up with a neighborhood water emergency plan. A wheeled grocery cart is a good emergency tool to have tucked away generally and can easily tote a five gallon water jug in a pinch.

Another alternative for those who have wells, but don’t have an independent energy source, is setting up a deep water hand pump either on a second well or over your existing submersible pump system. Check out SimplePump.com. Simple Pump is an innovative solution for pumping water from your existing well during a power outage. If anyone reading this has installed a simple pump and would like to share their experience installing and using one, please contact info@PreparedTompkins.org.

Water Sharing

A water sharing strategy must be accomplished without compromising your water reservoir or overstressing your water delivery system. Clean water storage containers will be required, which if someone hasn’t stored water on their own they will be unlikely to have hanging around their house, so you’ll need to put some away yourself. Transportation can also be a barrier in water sharing, so take this into consideration if you come up with a neighborhood water emergency plan. A wheeled grocery cart is a good emergency resource to have stored and can easily tote a five gallon water bottle.

Stored Water

Stored water comes in a number of forms. Bottled water can be stocked up in your pantry or storage room and the stock rotated out if you are a regular bottled water drinker. However, this is not an eco-friendly practice as it involves using plastic water bottles and requires significant transportation, manufacturing and recycling costs. It’s also the most expensive method of water storage. However, if you’re unlikely to store water in another way, go for it.

Cisterns or water reservoirs hooked into your household water system that replenish themselves (during normal conditions) as you use water drawn from your well or the municipal water supply are a great way to store water in adequate amounts for an emergency. When the electric isn’t functioning, your pump will be down, but your water resevoir will be full. Begin to ration you water (2 gallons/day/person) and chlorinate only if necessary. Water tanks up to 300 gallons can be purchased and installed next to your household water pump. This will require the services of a plumber. Be sure to have an outlet placed at the bottom of your reservoir so the water can be drawn from your cistern or water tank during a power outage. This kind of emergency water plan will also require containers with spigots that you can carry from your resevoir to other locations in your home. The collapsable 5 gallon plastic containers with handles are a good match for this use; they are easy to carry, inexpensive, and don’t take up much storage space.

Storing water in water storage containers is another alternative. It’s easy, but must be done with care. Only use food grade containers that have been made to store liquid. They are usually made with blue plastic that doesn’t allow light to pass through – this eliminates the formaton of algae. Sizes typically are 5 gal, 15 gal, 30 gal and 55 gal drums. Most households store their water containers in the basement or garage (freezing isn’t a problem unless you need the water while it’s frozen.) Be sure not to purchase used containers, unless you are 100% sure that no one’s put anything but water in them. You’ll need a self-venting spigot, a syphon, or a hand pump to remove the water without waste. Oxygen stabilizers will allow you to store the water for up to four years. Remember to take the considerable weight of water into consideration with your planning: a 55 gallon drum weighs 300 pounds. As with the cistern or water reservoirs solution above, be sure to include smaller containers with spigots that can be easily transported from your water stock to other areas of the home. Many water storage retailers are available on the web.

Surface Water

Collecting water from the environment is tricky and fraught with perils (not all of them microbial), but can be accomplished with know-how and a reliable purification system. In general, it would be best to have another source of drinking water (pumped or stored) and use water from ponds or snow for flushing toilets or watering animals. Used in this way, surface water can augment your stored potable water supplies. A wonderfully useful book, When Technology Fails by Matthew Stein, has an entire section on water filtration and purification.