Maintaining Potable Water Supply Post-Flood/Storm

[CharlesHarris]

I have been reading with great interest the reports coming out of Puerto Rico.

The Centers for Disease Control have declared a public health emergency due to many citizens having no access to safe drinking water, combined with the contamination threats posed by flood waters and failed infrastructure.

This happens everywhere after a flood or hurricane, and having a safe stored water supply plus a means to decontaminate yourself after exposure to contaminated flood water, maintaining sanitation and having a means to filter, decontaminate and purify water is vital.

Water supply, decon and basic sanitation need to be a priorities in everyone's preps!

More than a week after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico at least 44% of the island's residents don't have access to potable water, according to the Defense Department. Gov. Ricardo Rosselló told CNN that...

"...we have been able to restore only 50% of water, because the majority of water in Puerto Rico also depends on electric generators," he said on Wednesday.
Generators need fuel, which is on short supply.

Elí Díaz-Atienza, executive vice president for Puerto Rico's Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, told San Juan-based WKAQ radio the island's water facilities were significantly damaged during the hurricane... his water restoration plan includes using trucks to deliver water to residents in the island's rural areas...

As government officials work to rebuild water systems throughout the island, the water situation has become dire...The World Health Organization says a lack of safe drinking water and suitable sanitation could lead to significant health risks, some of which include diarrhea, hepatitis, malaria and malnutrition...

After a natural disaster, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises... ts boiling water, using disinfectants or a filtration system to sanitize water. The CDC says bottled water is the safest choice...

Shipping containers with food, water and other supplies are sitting at the Port of San Juan... but delivering them...is the issue [because]...The hurricane wiped out roads and devastated the island's airports and shipping ports... [Navy and Coast Guard] d is conducting airlifts to distribute supplies...

https://www.wired.com/story/puerto-rico-health/

https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2017/09/1...maria.html

[Mortblanc]

It appears that 10,000 shipping containers of food and water are sitting in port due to a lack of drivers for the trucks to transport the goods.

Once again politics is taking precedent over good sense. This is the same crap we had during Katrina, where a mayor and local officials in a corrupt and bankrupt "political machine" wanted to insure they got a cut of all funds, blocked assistance to the community.

The Teamsters Union is refusing to allow anyone that does not have a valid Commercial Driver License to drive a truck and the mayor of San Juan is backing them up due to political debts. The Union is in charge of vetting the drivers of the relief mission!

So far only 20% of the Union drivers on the island can be contacted, so supplies are only going out to a limited area near the city.

If this were Texas or Florida there would be a fleet of 250,000 pickup driving rednecks in 4wd units lined up and waiting to get the supplies to the people!

I am surprised that FEMA has not called on a National Guard transport unit to furnish some military drivers for this task.

Originally it was thought that the roads were impassable but that has been claimed not the case. And apparently the air port is in usable condition too or the shipments would not be getting in.

I do not think most of the people in the affected area care if the driver bringing them supplies belongs to the Union or not.

Air lifting supplies is going to be difficult due to the limited number of aircraft. Each Navy ship responding to the Island has only a couple of helicopters on board, if any.

I am sure that many of the local aircraft were damaged by the storm and they have limited capabilities at best.

[CharlesHarris]

Unfortunately, FEMA cannot activate the National Guard, they are considered a state government asset under control of the governor, unless Federalized.

President Trump has the authority to Federalize the National Guard and to put them under Federal government command under his authority as Commander In Chief, in which case the military liaison from Central Command who is allocated to FEMA for the duration of the event, has full authority to command on the ground.

Doing so would have political consequences, by removing incident command away from state and local control, but this has precedent when the state and local government has been deemed corrupt and incompetent, as was the case in New Orleans after Katrina. Mayor Ray Nagen later went to prison and governor Landrieu was voted out of office in the next election.

Time will tell...

[CharlesHarris]

As historical background: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014...rison.html

By NOLA.com
The Times-Picayune
Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison.

Nagin, 58, the two-term mayor who was the face of the city during Hurricane Katrina, joins a list of Louisiana elected officials convicted of misdeeds. He is New Orleans' first mayor to be convicted and sent to prison for public corruption.

[Mortblanc]

Now, with the political commentary out of the way how about we look at the actual situation and how WE would deal with it.

No electric for the well pumps. Surface water as the only source.

All surface water is assumed contaminated.

PR is not a desert island, there are many streams and runoffs.

And remember that there are still people there, so them and the supplies they had on hand did survive the storm, however, many of the things we would normally stash away, like Berkley filters and such might be damaged beyond use or repair.

No time to build big filter systems. You need the water right now!

Personally, I would be looking for the largest metal container I could find, filling it with water and stoking a big fire underneath, while at the same time searching through the rubble for bottles of bleach.

There should be no shortage of water on PR, the shortage is of potable water. There is also not a shortage of fuel, plenty of wood to burn around after one of these storms.

Fortunately many of the older people of PR are used to a rural existence and remember living without power. They are probably already searching in the shed for the old well buckets they used to use to draw water.

[CharlesHarris]

Hopefully people have enough rum to kill bacteria in their water, if they can't find bleach.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/gue...d-ulcers1/

"...In August of 1832, people began to get very sick in Inverness, Scotland. They did not know the story of cholera... Its spread lasted roughly eleven weeks and when it was over more than a hundred and seventy people had died... For example, on May 11th, 1832 it was reported that at “Fort George, a soldier died of cholera & a female has recovered from it.” Why him, why not her? Surely there was some reason1a...

"...a poster from the time of the cholera outbreak, urging people to avoid uncooked fruits and vegetables AND to drink fermented and spirituous liquors, at least in moderation...

"...Those aboard ships knew wine and beer kept them healthy, even if they did not know why. Henry the VII made sure his ships carried more beer than food and even then it was sometimes was not enough. During the Spanish Expedition, John Stile wrote to the king, "And it please your Grace, the greatest lack of victuals here is of beer, for your subjects had [lyver] for to drink beer than wine or cider, for the hot wines dothe burn them and the cider dothe cast them in disease and sickness" The cider lacked alcohol. The beer had it, perhaps in enough quantities to kill at least some of what ailed those aboard. At least the sailors, and maybe our early agricultural ancestors, appear to have consumed alcohol, in part, to ward off disease."

1a-Guthrie, J.S. and D. O. Ho-Yen. 2011. Alcohol and cholera J R Soc Med. 104:98; doi:10.1258/jrsm.2011.110013 and Guthrie, J.S. H. McKenzie and D. O. Ho-Yen. 2007. Alcohol and its influence on the survival of Vibrio cholerae. British Journal of Biomedical Sciences. 64: 1-2.

[Mortblanc]

Lets see now, it takes between 5% and 10% alcohol to kill the bugs so a good 80 proof rum would be 40% bug killer, so a quart of rum should kill all the bugs in a 2 gallon bucket of water if you let it sit for a while.

Sounds like a real waste of good rum. Best to use gin or vodka.

[CharlesHarris]

Ethyl alcohol USP, Everclear, Pharmco, aka good moonshine or white lightning 192 proof. Not just for stove fuel anymore.

[Straight Shooter]

One of the things i have done (deliberately) when i build my brew shed ....was not to connect to the main water supply (which is easy to do ) my main reason was to see what that would mean and how would that effect me ....water is heavy.... so i used a two wheeled stack trolley to transport a 25 ltr and a 10 ltr water jack , over to the main house (about 120 yards ) i was amazed by the results and how much we take this resource for granted at least i did .....boiling water....electric kettle or via a stock pot on the lpg gas stove, you soon learn how to conserve water and reorganise your activities ....in short you do not waste it, i have a stream running 8 ft away from the belfast sink so i could use that via a tank up the hill a ways and pipe in to the shed ...but i would have to boil every pint of it .....but very easy doable even if i employed the wood stove i made in a shtf scenario and i do have a big boy Berkey and another two streams around the ground plus a well that has a sump holding thirty gallons .....i always keep those jacks full by the end of any day as a matter of coarse just in case i have to load them into the bo trailer or 4x4 sharpish with regards to PR they had fair warning and should have prepared better imho.

[Mortblanc]

I just had a brain fart.

Got to wondering what large container would be easily available in a disaster zone and appropriate for boiling large quantities of water.

A guy on TV started talking about "bathtub gin" and it hit me that one could pull a steel bathtub from the rubble, plug the drain hole and sit it on a couple of stones or blocks and stoke a good fire under it at the end opposite the drain.

If you kept two or three going at the same time you could rotate out 400 liters of water from each tub. It would take a long boil time so it would be best to keep two or three going if possible.