From my last post I mentioned I would use that as an outline for a few of my future posts. First off lets start with water. Do you store any? Most people have a few weeks of food on hand which I consider not nearly enough. But how about water? On the short term like a broken water main out at the street it would be easy enough to run to the store pick up a few cases of bottled water. Oh and while your there use the bathroom. Its been recommended by various groups that you should store at least one gallon of water per person X how many days you determine you have the space for. So a family of 4 will need 4 gallons just for one day. If your planing on a 3 day event then you could use a minimum of 12 gallons. Now out of that gallon of water 1/2 of it is meant to drink with. the other half to wash with. But when your done washing don't through that water away. There are other uses for it. #1 on my list would be flushing the toilet.

What can be used for storage? If your a household of soda pop drinkers save and wash out the 2 liter bottles. These are great water storage containers. They also work well for the storage of rice or beans. If used for food make sure they are completely dry inside before you load them up with rice or beans. What I do after the washing is to let them sit with out the cap on for a few days. This way any water in them will evaporated.

Now back to water. It used to be said that you should treat your water before storage with unscented house hold bleach. That still holds true if your water source isn't from a municipal source. If your on city or town water its already treated before it comes out of your faucet. I would still rotate the water out every 6 months and refill the containers. Just as a reminder use dates like the first day of summer and first day of winter.

Other good water containers can be the hard plastic bottles juice comes in. These generally have a wider mouth so it makes food storage much easier. I like the Soda bottles because they can be laid on there side and stacked like chord wood. Other items you could find in a camping or sporting good store such as hard plastic 5 and 6 gallon containers. If you already have a few on hand because your family camps, great. Don't put them away empty.

Once your water has been used to wash with I recommend saving it. That would mean you have a bucket or dish pan or something to store this water in. An empty 5 gallon bucket would work great. This water could then be used for the toilet. You could just pour the water in the toilet bowl but this is pretty inefficient and usually wastes more water than if flushed in the normal manner. So open up the top of your toilet tank and refill the tank. Don't flush on every use. You will go through a lot of water. Remember the old saw? If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down.

Also don't limit your water intake. Dehydration can at best be a headache (literally)  and or something far more severe at worse, especially in the summer heat. Dehydration is pretty easy in the winter months as well just because of the dryness of the air. And don't forget your pets they need to drink as well.

On my next post I'll try and cover other ways to procure water and how to make it safe for drinking.

God Bless
Mark