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Letter Re: Water Storage and Filtration Preparedness Pays Off

Mr. Rawles;
Well, it happened without warning. Loud knocking on the door, insistent, and then again. A man from the local water utility was there, telling us late in the morning that we had a broken underground pipe that is flooding the neighborhood, and he is now cutting off our water supply.

We immediately called our plumber who arrived a couple of hours later with a crew to dig the big hole. The story, though, is how we felt with the water cut off: "Just fine, thank you."

Our preparations include:
1. Bottled water: 42 one-liter bottles, 75 half-liter bottles
2. 22 one-gallon and larger glass and plastic jugs filled with water and bleach drops added (glass sangria jugs with handles are the best)
3. Portable Katadyn water purification system
4. 30 water purification tablets
5. Family size water filtration system
6. 2 full rain barrels
7. 3 gallons plain bleach
8. 30,000 gallon in-ground swimming pool
9. Several cases of baby wipes
10. Many hand sanitizer dispensers

Naturally, the above consumables get rotated and replaced as needed. I'm not mentioning all the soda, juice, powdered drink mixes because those are extras.
I will mention that I grabbed one of those huge empty pickle jars, filled it with swimming pool water, placed it in the bathroom to use for flushing as instructed by a SurvivalBlog reader a few months ago. Thank you for this knowledge.

We had already made the two wash and rinse buckets with brand new plungers for washing clothes without electricity, as directed by another SurvivalBlog reader. What a great idea. We have a couple of old washboards, but the bucket idea is superior.

I now just need to get the hand wringer from Lehman's. In addition, another minor purchase will be one of those portable solar camping showers for bathing.

We weren't expecting this event, but it provided a nice dry run practice and had us thinking. We were without water for only a few hours, so the inconvenience was minimal. However, I can't begin to express the total calm and assurance that came from knowing that having the water cut off was really a non-event in our lives and that we were ready.

Many thanks to all the SurvivalBlog contributors who share so freely and to Jim for hosting the site.

Now, let's see how we do with a blackout. - Elizabeth B.

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