Welcome to February’s Monthly Challenge! How did Making a List go? This month we’re going right to the basics. Your challenge is to get three gallons of water stored per person in your household. I know you were hoping for something more glamorous, but I promise this is important.
Having clean water in an emergency is a big deal. A person can live three weeks without food, but only three days without water. Our bodies need water. In case you’re still not convinced, here are 12 reasons you may need water in an emergency.
I dedicate an entire chapter to water storage in my book, Food Storage for Self-Sufficiency and Survival so if you want to get more in depth, get a copy of the book!
Ready to get started? First let’s multiply that three gallons by the number of people in your household to determine the total amount of water you need to have stored. This will make it easier to figure out how and where to store it. For my family, it is a total of 18 gallons (6 people x 3 gallons each = 18 gallons). Add more for animals or any extra you’d like to have after reading those 12 reasons you may need water!
Choose a Storage Location
When determining where you will store your water, look for a place that is cool, dark, and low to the ground. Raise the water off a cement floor with boards or pallets, and don’t store your water above anything you wouldn’t want to get wet just in case your container develops a leak. If you are in a small home, you may need to get more creative. If you don’t have a dedicated storage space (it’s okay, I don’t either), you can store water in closets, under beds, or behind couches or other furniture. Look through your house–three gallons of water isn’t too hard to hide. Once you’ve figured out where you can put it, choose containers to hold it all. Knowing your available space will help in the selection of water containers that will work best for you.
Choose Containers
How are you going to store your water? Options range from water bottles to 55 gallon drums with lots of choices in between. Check out this list for the pros and cons of most popular water storage containers. Choose containers that will give you the total amount of water storage you need and will work for the space you have available for water storage. If you want to store three gallons, you could do it with six 2 liter bottles, three gallon sized jugs, one WaterBrick, or have a little extra by using a five gallon jug. A combination of containers is a great idea, for example, some water bottles for easy drinking, plus a WaterBrick for easy transport.
Fill and Date
If you chose containers that needed filled, fill them with fresh tap water and mark them with the date. If your tap water is chlorinated, it doesn’t need treated when the bottle is filled. If you have untreated water or well water, add two drops of unscented bleach to each gallon prior to storing. Fill the containers all the way to the top as long as they will be stored in a place where they won’t freeze. Write the date directly on the bottle or on tape or a label so you’ll know when the water is ready to rotate. Rotating water every 6 to 12 months helps ensure a fresh supply.
That’s it! You’re done! You have three days worth of clean water for each member of your family!
Want more to do?
Got three gallons of water stored and ready for more? Go ahead and get a two week supply of water stored (14 gallons per person). Then choose something else from those lists you made last month and get tackling it!
Let me know how it goes!
Remember to comment on this post for a chance to win a random prize at the end of the month. Really, I’m not sure what kind of fun I’ll have around here to ship off to you for participating in the monthly challenges. Congrats to Deborah who won her choice of either my food storage book or an autographed copy of Creek Stewart’s Build the Perfect Bug Out Vehicle for commenting on January’s challenge!
Keep preparing! Angela
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We went 5 days without water and power after Hurricane Frances in 2004. Florida had 4 hurricanes that year! We couldn’t flush, as the lift stations were not working, but some people did anyway, which flooded those at a lower elevation with raw sewage. Our retirement community has 3 swimming pools, and people got pool water to use for that. I had enough water then, and I have even more now, and plenty of cold food will be available for us for several days. I have more than 3 gallons per person now, but perhaps not 18 gallons, and I will do an inventory. One thing I learned – freeze water in gallon and half-gallon jugs beforehand. We had to rely on crushed ice which melted daily, and had to try to buy more, along with 50,000 other residents! A frozen gallon jug of water will last for days in a cooler. The refrigerator is ALSO a giant cooler, so put lots of ice in there, too. And jugs won’t leak all over your kitchen floor like bags of crushed ice do……. I’m considering plastic shoeboxes for freezing water this year. They can be stacked like bricks and provide a flat surface for food to sit on, and cover the entire floor of my 6 ft. long cooler. As the ice melts, it can become cooking/flushing water, but in addition to our drinkable stores, we will have a very large trash can (30 gallon?) outdoors to catch rain water to use for gray water purposes. I intend to get a length of dryer hose to fasten to a downspout and put into the trash can. Hurricane season is June 1-Nov. 30, and I am prepared. After Hurricane Andrew, those who didn’t live in the city went 9 months without power!
We live in the mountains and our power goes off quite often for no reason sometimes. So I’m always prepared for almost anything. We use our pool water for grey water uses. I have 12 gallons stored right now for 2 people, but I’m planning on buying a couple of rain barrels to store drinking water in my root cellar. I’ll fill these from my tap, in case anyone wonders. Lol. I really enjoy your site so keep up the good work. It always helps to be prepared for anything.
The challenge is on! I have 3 gallons of water per person which is 12 gallons. We store it under the house where is cool! I am very happy that we are doing this! For the first time in my life I have a water storage and I feel amazing! Greetings, Storage Norbiton Ltd.