7 steps for emergency water preparation

[Music] YouTube this is City prepping and in this video I want to talk about what is probably the most important most critical prep that you can start with if you get into emergency preparedness and prepping what we're going to be talking about today is water and water storage it's easy to set up store and forget about water you can pretty much just put it away somewhere and you're good to go you can get enough water to last a family of four for about three to four weeks with all the containers preservatives etc probably for under 250 bucks and it's easy to get focused on gear and gadgets when you first get into prepping but water is really the first thing that you should be concerned about and really focus on when you start prepping so in this video we're going to discuss a few different things here number one the importance of water number two the type of storage container is available on the market number three where to store your water number four how to prove how to prepare your storage containers and water for long-term storage how much water should you store places you can find water in a situation with the infrastructure in the area has been damaged and making water safe to drink so the first subject matter is the importance of water you can't live longer than three days without water food you can go you know roughly three weeks or so but water this is not going to happen your body depends on it and after a certain period of time it will start shutting down if it does it get it on the other hand just taking in water itself is not the solution you've got to have good clean sanitary water because ingesting unsanitary water with pathogens can result in severe illness resulting in death if we look at the recent situation that's been happening in Flint Michigan you can just see how how much damage it does to a community when clean fresh water is not available that community is going through a lot of challenges simply because they don't have clean water so many things that we do on a daily basis they require water whether it's drinking cooking cleaning bathing even using the toilet if the water was not available and not coming out of the tap should there be an emergency or catastrophe in your area what would you do when it comes to water average American they use 80 to 100 gallons of water a day and in a grid down scenario you can get by on about 1 gallon of water per day per person in your household there's even websites like ready.gov that recommend you have at a bare minimum three days of water on hand per person I was watching TV the other day a few weeks ago and on Conan O'Brien they even had a whole segment about preparing for an emergency and when Conan O'Brien asks the guests on the show what people should be doing to prepare her advice was store up a lot of water and I'll provide a link to that episode in the description below it's really important that you if you're gonna get into prepping and emergency preparedness that you first focus on water because again that is hands down apart from your you know shelter that's going to be one of the most important things you'll need so the next question becomes what can I store water in what do I use well most of us will in the private community and you'll see this a lot of times you'll see people using different type of polymer plastic storage containers and what you're going to look for is on the bottom you'll see a little stamp it will say PE T or PE T and these are type of grade of plastic that's safe for drinking out of I have several different types of storage containers in my home I've got five gallon stackable plastic containers these are like a dark blue and I'll provide a link in the description below I've also got seven gallon non stackable water containers and these are also really great these five gallon and seven gallon I've got them in different places the five gallons obviously I try stack more I can the seven gallons I slide them into areas that I can't necessarily stack them but these are both great options especially when it comes to being in a bug-out situation where you have to leave them quickly because the next time we'll talk about is a 55 gallon water storage container and I've got several of these in my garage but in an emergency you can't really move those around you can't throw in the back your truck and head out of town with the five gallon and seven gallon you can so I keep a lot of those on hand as well when it comes to 55 gallon water containers you'll hear a lot of myths online about that one story on cement you know basically from whatever read you don't want to store it on hot cement I put two by fours under my 55 gallon water storage containers I just don't want them resting on the ground maybe I bought into the myth so I'll provide a link to you know different websites where you can pick up these 55 gallon storage containers you know these I keep these in the garage I would love to keep them in the house and I'll talk about where to store them here in a second you're going to need when you pick up one of these 55 gallon you're going to need a bung wrench to open up the you know the cap on the top of the storage container and you're going to need a water pump to extract the water out and one of the things that I definitely recommend before you store your water containers make sure you put a date on them and put any relevant information for example on mine you know I put the date when I originally store them prep them but water preserve of the venom and explain how long the water preservative is good for so that way I can always go back and look and I can know when I have to rotate them next the next question becomes where do you store your water container the most important thing is is stored out of sunlight sunlight encourages bacterial growth in your water now ideally you want to store it in a cool dry place around 50 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit most of my water I keep under our stairwell in our closet it's a really cool place never really gets hot there and I store them in different places in our house in closets and again I make sure I cover them up I also store my 55 gallon in the garage it's not the ideal place because it can get really hot in the garage it's not a place that's going to be cool but unfortunately I don't have the space in my house and you may run into the same issue if I have the option Atwood storm in the house but I don't have the option if you do storm outside make sure you cover them up with a tarp or something that will keep the sunlight off of them the next question is how do you prepare your storage containers and water for long-term storage first of all if you're going to use water containers make sure you purchase some that have not been used in other words get them brand new those are the ones that you're going to want to ultimately use for your drinking water now you can find great deals if you go on Craigslist or other websites or garage sales you'll find a lot of times use water containers 55-gallon etc and I picked up a few of those in the past for really good deals the ones our use that I don't know the history on them I don't put our drinking water in that water that I'm going to rely upon that in the situation where we you know you drinking water I wouldn't want to rely on those I use those for you know in the event and of emergency you're going to need water for again basic sanitation things like washing your hands taking it baths flushing you know you blushing your toilet you know maybe even doing the dishes but those are things that I don't want to actually take in and you know drink when I have two 55-gallon water drums that again I picked up at a garage sale and I got a great deal on them and again I just use those for basic sanitation needs and in both of those I've added about 1/4 cup of unscented bleach into those so before you use even water containers that are brand new you're going to want to make sure you sterilize them by throwing in some bleach and water on the inside and you know squishing it around really good and making sure all the surfaces get contact again just a basic combination of unscented bleach and water the one thing that I've done and all the water that I'm going to use for drinking is I've added water preservative I'll provide a link in the description below a lot of times people say hey you know if the water comes out of tap it's a retreat with chlorine so you'll be safe I just used add water preservative in all my water containers that's not that expensive you can pick up water preservative on Amazon for less than $10 and it'll treat up to 55 gallons of water so that's just what I choose to use again I think it's kind of a cheap insurance policy then rather assuming that the chlorine that's in the eggs at you know water and our tap will take care of it and keep the water preserved for a long period of time so whenever you're done filling these containers up after you've clean them out really well you want to cap them off so no contaminants or air get inside and again I'll provide a link in the description below to the CDC website where they talk about prepping water containers has a lot of great information there the next question that often comes up is how much water should you store what I always encourage people to do is just at least at a bare minimum have a three day water supply in your house for everybody so I always encourage people at a bare minimum you need at least a three-day water supply on hand and that's three days of water for each person so if there's four people in your house for three days that's 12 gallons so you want to start there and then work out I've at this point a game I'm up to about a month over the next you know year I'm going to try to build that up to you know two or three months I'm going to continue adding on different options starting out with three days can literally be done under $10 you can go to the grocery store and pick up the plastic you know a little like two and a half gallon water containers where I think about a buck a buck fifty but that's somewhere in a cool dry place and that's the first starting point right there and again they're in an emergency situation those are easy to move around and they also can be used on daily basis you may go to a picnic or something and they're great to have so think practically think of something that you can use once you start in the three days and work up to two weeks and then a month and go from there places you can find water in a situation where the infrastructure in your area has been damaged if again you know some type of catastrophe happens in your area you can get water from the back of your toilet in the tank that's assuming that you have it put any kind of cleaner or you know anything like that in it so that's you know it's safe I personally probably boil it but it's safe to drink hot water heater in your garage most people don't think about this but it holds roughly 50 gallons and a lot of times you there's a little you know just valve at the bottom you can open up and get the water out of pipes in the house I live in a two-story house so whenever we drain the water obviously the pipes upstairs you know they go first then you turn the ones downstairs and you know they empty out and you can even get you know the water will store at the very very bottom of the pipe so there's ways you can extract and get those out the water out of the pipes having a rain catchment system is something I currently don't have but I plan on building down the road and that's a really good option and one that's a lot of times people bring up as a pool you know sometimes people may argue well I have a pool so do I really need to store water yeah you do you're assuming that that water in the emergency does it get contaminated what if there's radiation fallout what if you know you go down the list of what if it's sitting out in the open it can easily get contaminated so what a pool would be my last of last of last options you know if I had no other option even then I'm going to have to really boil it treat it probably filter and let's talk about that point next the next point is how do you make water safe to drink we'll talk about boiling treating and filtering the first one is boiling bringing water to a rolling boil for about three or five minutes it's going to kill most of the waterborne waterborne microorganisms however just because you boil it it's not going to necessarily take out toxic contaminants also remember that whenever you boil that means you have to use fuel fuel is valuable in the time of an emergency fuel if you don't have it on hand by few I mean whether it's propane or you know you've collected you know wood to burn even the time that it takes to split wood and to bring wood back to your house that is time that's fuel that's fuel that your body that's calories that you know you're beginning to use so whenever we talk about water storage we want to have it ready to use in a time of emergency not pull it out and then have to treat it that's the last that's not at the time that you want to have to begin to treat your water the next item is bleach you can use bleach to kill most of the microorganisms you can add about a drops of fresh liquid household chlorine bleach to every about four liters or in other words one gallon of water and that will kill most organisms it's going to still be safe for you to drink probably let it sit for thirty minutes to an hour or so that's only household bleach that doesn't have thickeners cents or additives don't use all you know the bleaches that have all those you want a non-sentient bleach and again bleach just like boiling doesn't necessarily address the issue of toxic contamination now this is where filters come in you're going to have filters on hand to address any toxic contamination I in my different bug-out bags vehicle EDC's etc I've got three different types of water filters I've got a live strong get us all your water filter and I've got a pure sip water filter again these are real simple you know kind of on your person they're not going to filter a whole lot of water and a lot of the heavy contaminants so you know they'll get you by in a pinch but if you're in a long-term situation obviously that's not going to filter out water for you know you know like cooking or other things that you're going to need eventually do but they're good to have on hand nonetheless and I'll provide links in the description below to some of the ones I use now on the issue of filtering I've really researched this for a while and you're more than welcome to do it yourself you may come to a different conclusion that I've found so many different filters that you can pick up on the market some are better than others and some are cheap but I think in the day if you know my life's on the line I'm not looking for cheap the one that consistently stands out that's you know seems to be the most popular and really gets the job done as a berkey water filters they're expensive as all get-out but the beauty of something like that is you can use them in everyday life it's not just you have to pull it out the closet pay a hundred dollars for a filter and then never use it you know or maybe use it once in ten years I just like the fact that I can actually when I think about prepping I can use things in a practical everyday context and a berkey water filter is awesome for that and you know apart from all the you know things that it can do to clean your water up just for your family it's my recommendation and it's what we use in our home and again I'll provide a link in the description below so the final note about water preparation remember two is one and one is none always always have backup options when it comes to water I have you know I going to continue to build and expand upon my water stores because where I live it's it's for all intents and purposes it's a desert and I just want to make sure that we are prepared you know should we have an earthquake or some other catastrophe that could take down the you know the water system here as always I'll provide links in the description below to the different websites and products that I talked about in this video that I use personally as always if you find these videos useful please click on the subscribe button below and I always find it interesting the different comments that people post on my videos some of the great information they provided that I never would have thought about I'm learning like everyone else and I always enjoy to hear your feedback as always be safe out there [Music]

Channel: City Prepping

Views: 781,114

Rating: 4.932055 out of 5

Keywords: emergency preparedness, water storage, prepping, preppers, earthquake, zombie, zombie apocalypse

Id: VHTSwPnivbU

Length: 15min 41sec (941 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 03 2016