Water Needs and Disaster Supply Kits

Provident Principles and Practices

© David Edwards, 2009

PRINCIPLES: In Essentials of Home Production and Storage, published in 1978 by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it says that individuals and families ought to have on hand easily movable containers with stored emergency supplies, placing the containers in locations where they can be picked up quickly if needed. On p. 7, it states that these containers should contain water. This guide furthermore refers to the wisdom of storing agents that can purify water. The reason given is that in most areas it is not practical to store enough water to supply our needs for a year.

The American Red Cross, Charter Oak Chapter Web site, 2009, suggests that, within our disaster supply kits, we “store one gallon of water per person per day (two quarts for drinking, two quarts for food preparation/sanitation).” This is about half that which we would store in our house, where the weight of water is not so great a consideration.

PRACTICES: We need water for drinking. Water may be vital for washing, bathing, first aid, and oral rehydration. If it’s hot or humid, or we’re active, we may need several gallons per day. Storing water in disaster supply kits is recommended by the Church, FEMA and the American Red Cross.

Quantity. One gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds. Most of us cannot easily lift a disaster supply kit containing all other needed supplies if it also holds three to five gallons of water. You will probably want to include within your kit, however, at least a quart to a gallon of water ready to drink. To utilize sources of water that you find outside the home, you may choose to include in your kit water purification tablets and/or devices, bottles for solar water purification, and containers for storing and transporting water. You may also wish to keep on hand next to your disaster supply kit a larger, readily accessible supply of water that you can quickly pick up and put into your car and take with you. For example, this could consist of one or more flats of commercial bottled water, or a three or five-gallon container filled with treated water (e.g., using 8 drops 5.25% pure bleach/gallon water).

Filled Water Containers. You can include in your kit some water in plastic bottles or a canteen. Commercially filled plastic water bottles will work. If you prefer to employ used juice bottles, they should first be washed out with soap and water and rinsed thoroughly. Cap bottles tightly so that they do not leak. You can put three 0.5-L bottles in a zipped gallon-size freezer bag to help prevent damage to kit contents should a bottle leak. Clear plastic 0.5 or 1.0 L PET bottles can be used for solar disinfection of water found outside the home. Exposure to sunlight through a clear PET bottle (six hours in sunlight on clear days; two days, if cloudy) can destroy most pathogenic microbes. Be sure to remove all labels from the bottles, and place the bottles on their sides in the sunlight, away from any shadows.

Empty Containers. You can include empty containers to fill with water in case you find a source of water outside the home. Containers may include buckets, platypus water carriers, or zipped freezer bags. While adding little weight or volume to kit contents, empty containers increase your options.

Water Purification Tablets. EPA-registered water purification tablets are effective against viruses, bacteria, Giardia and Cryptosporidium. It may take several hours for tablets to purify water.

Portable Water Purification Devices. These important devices, which can purify water, include those that employ ceramic cartridges to filter microbes out of water, those that use electrolysis to generate reactive oxides to destroy pathogens, and those that use UV light for water disinfection.
Ceramic cartridge filters can remove pathogenic bacteria, Giardia, and Cryptosporidia, but not pathogenic viruses. Fortunately, pathogenic viruses are not now commonly found in U.S. natural waters. They are elsewhere in the world. Chlorine bleach may not kill Giardia and Cryptosporidia but will kill viruses. Electrolytic chlorine dioxide generators and UV devices, as shown above, can generally kill all known pathogens.

More: http://charteroak.redcross.org/media/Your_Family_Disaster_Supplies_Kit.pdf

Photo Credits: D. and S. Edwards