How Much Water To Store?

[CharlesHarris]

The common FEMA of 1 gallon per person per day of potable water is OK for healthy adults sheltering indoors in moderate climate.

It is inadequate for an active adult, doing even moderate physical labor, either outdoors or indoors in summer, in a grid-down environment without fans or air conditioning.

When our EMAC public works crews were assigned to do debris cleanup near Gulfport, MS after huirricanes Katrina and Rita, Safety Officers from the US Army Corps of Engineers enforced hydration breaks of 1 pint every 30 minutes for personnel performing manual labor and 1 pint per hour for motorized equipment and heavy equipment operators driving non-air conditioned trucks, dozers, loaders, and knuckleboom cranes.

In camp we rigged a fog nozzle on a 1-inch hose connected to a Lister bag for use as an improvised shower facility. The daily wash water requirement was 20L per man daily, allowing 30 secs. to get wet, shut off, lather and scrub for 2 minutes, followed by 1 minute for rinse.

This wash water amount must be doubled to provide adequate decontamination after exposure to contaminated flood waters or radioactive fallout.

[Steve]

There must be quite a high risk from electrolyte loss if drinking that much water. A small amount of salt and sugar would help enormously, something that should be in every BOB.

My own storage is currently 5700 litres plus a well, rainwater collection and a spring, I realise that's not possible for most people but a 1000 litre IBC container is quite small and can easily be fitted in the corner of a garden or even partially buried. They cost £50 each.

[Highlander]

I also have the IBC containers,.. I hold 2200 litres at home

[bigpaul]

I thought the MINIMUM for adults not doing any work, lying in the shade was about HALF a gallon per adult, mainly drinking and cooking but not including bathing?

[Binnie]

the whole 2 litre tings is a guide only, not an absolute minimum.

in fact there are some schools of thought that say the 2 litre per day is a load of bull, as everyone is different.

has anyone ever tried to run on the minimum water they can as an excercise? might be worth a try?

[Mortblanc]

The approach toward water use has changed during the Iraq/Afgan conflict.

40 years ago they issued salt tablets and told everyone to limit their water intake and "self ration" their water. We often had people injured from heat stroke of dehydration when they had adequate water in their canteens to have prevented the issues and that the salt tables did not prevent electrolyte loss but speeded it up.

Now the philosophy is to drink adequately because there is more in the truck.

Unfortunately, much of the military surplus reading material we obtain in print and on line is from that period 40 years ago.

Water storage is a balance and does not stand alone. There is no need for 10,000 liters of water if you only have two weeks of food in your stores. Fact is you do not need but 21 days more water than you have in the food larder. Otherwise you will simply be well hydrated while starving to death.

However, larger or long duration food storage does not necessarily indicate the need for huge reserves of water. Past an initial phase, the consideration is how much water one can process/purify.

While the in-house stores should be adequate for shelter-in-place, the ability to purify what is needed from environmental sources makes "storage" irrelevant after the shelter-in-place phase is over.

[Lightspeed]

I don't get your logic in this MB.

After air, water is the most critical commodity.

Without water people start to die in 3 days to a week

Without food people start to die between 1 month and 6 weeks

Its logic to prepare to store enough water to stay alive for as long as our food stores plus 6 weeks.

This is especially true if the survival strategy is to bug in and lie low for three months, until the dust settles.

For, say 4 adults bugged in with a 3 month food stockpile, consuming 2l each per day, that's a storage requirement of 1080 Litres, just for drinking water.

The OP contends that the storage requirement should be 1 Gallon per person per day. That brings us to major logistical issues as the requirement for our 4 people above is then 4680 Litres (4.6 metric Tons in weight, so not something that can be stashed in the attic!)

[Steve]

Let's not forget that it's difficult to grow food without water. My own storage will get to 10,000 litres next year, enough to keep the animals alive and the polytunnel OK through a short drought.

[Lightspeed]

(24 September 2013, 18:26)Steve Wrote: Let's not forget that it's difficult to grow food without water. My own storage will get to 10,000 litres next year, enough to keep the animals alive and the polytunnel OK through a short drought.

That's called a small lake, isn't it Steve? :-)

[Mortblanc]

(24 September 2013, 16:30)Lightspeed Wrote: I don't get your logic in this MB.

After air, water is the most critical commodity.

Without water people start to die in 3 days to a week

Without food people start to die between 1 month and 6 weeks

Its logic to prepare to store enough water to stay alive for as long as our food stores plus 6 weeks.

This is especially true if the survival strategy is to bug in and lie low for three months, until the dust settles.

For, say 4 adults bugged in with a 3 month food stockpile, consuming 2l each per day, that's a storage requirement of 1080 Litres, just for drinking water.

The OP contends that the storage requirement should be 1 Gallon per person per day. That brings us to major logistical issues as the requirement for our 4 people above is then 4680 Litres (4.6 metric Tons in weight, so not something that can be stashed in the attic!)

What I said was that there is no need to have more water in the stores than a reasonable amount past the food stores one has on hand.

One of three things is a certainty;

1.normalcy will return before the food and water are consumed
2.everyone will die from other causes before the food and water fail
3.you will outlive your food and water rations

Once the "bug in" period is over (which it will be when one runs out of food) and the period of subsistence living in reached, water processing is the logical next step.