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Once the prepping bug hits, it is easy to want to go for it. You know what I mean: Let’s do it and let’s do it all Right Now!
There are some problems with this. First there are time constraints, and second there are money and budget issues. But the biggest problem and undoubtedly the one that is overlooked in the initial flurry of readiness preparations, is that without reasonable care and thought given to the process, the tasks and the actual products involved, you can make some costly mistakes. I say this from experience. In my haste to get “stocked up” I bought gear that I don’t like and will never use. I purchased foodstuffs I will never eat. Stupid stupid stupid of me. I should have taken my time, done my research, and made a well thought out and educated decision before I even got started.
Today I would like to help you break down the overwhelming task of emergency preparation by providing you with a month-by-month calendar of things to do, tasks to complete and items to purchase. For the newbies, this gives you a manageable number of things to do in a short period of time. Instead of looking at a task list 10 pages long, you have a short list that is eminently doable in 30 days or less. Read the rest of this entry »
Making a solar still will enable you to obtain and purify water, even in very dry climates. Understand that only pure water evaporates, so that in the evaporation process, most of the impurities are left in the soil. Understanding the principles of the solar still will enable you to adapt to your own situation.
The idea for the depth of the hole is to dig down to where the soil is DAMP. Build your solar still in the lowest, dampest area you can find. At the base of a hill, in a dry streambed or at the base of a dried-up gorge. This is where ground water accumulates, thus being the best place for gathering it.
Perhaps the only thing more important than food in a long-term emergency is water. Even the food you do have probably needs water to be cooked and eaten – especially dried beans and grains. Seriously, have you ever tried to bite into a dried bean? What is even more concerning is that water can be “bad” without anyone ever knowing it until it is too late! Crystal clear water can have dangerous bacteria growing in it, chemical run-off, and high levels of lead, mercury, or even arsenic!
Even if you store perfectly good water, storing it in the wrong way will mean that when you really need it, you will find yourself drinking poison rather than water. Just as critical as knowing how to store water, is the knowledge of knowing how not to store water.
What NOT to Use
Non-food-grade plastic. While some people would say that all plastic is questionable, for long term storage, certainly non-food-grade plastic is definitely out. The plastic containers can leech dangerous chemicals into anything you store in them, degrade over time, and often are so thin that rodents, bugs, and other pests have no trouble finding their way into the container.
Food grade plastic which has previously stored things other than food. While you may be able to get great cheap or free barrels through Free-cycle, Craig’s List, or scouting what is laying around your neighborhood, better to find another use for them besides food or water unless you know with absolute certainty what was in them before. Any kind of chemical (yes – including cleaners) could soak into the plastic and then soak right back out again into your long-term water storage.
Food grade plastic which previously stored fruit, juice, syrup, or milk. Right about now, you are probably thinking – I know, I can use old milk jugs and juice bottles! Yes, they are plastic. Yes, they are food grade. But the sugars in fruit and milk are impossible to completely remove from the plastic, and can easily start your own Petri dish of bacteria over time. I am sure you will be able to think of another use for these (or at least recycle them), but water storage is not the thing.
Any kind of cardboard. These easily break; soak up unwanted materials, or leak.
Anything else contaminated. While you might think if you just wash it well enough then it will be fine, don’t take chances with your water – it is just too important! Other than glass, or stainless steel, which can be sterilized by boiling in hot water for at least 20 minutes, it is better to be safe than sorry.
How Much to Store
How much water you need will largely depend on a variety of factors:
How many people are in your family
The presence of water locally
Average rainfall for your area
If you have pets or other animals you will need to care for
Whether or not any family members have special medical conditions
This is taken from the US Army Survival Manual, therefore I do not have an external link readily available for you. If you would like a copy of the manual please post a comment below the article and I will email you a copy.
REQUIREMENTS FOR MAINTENANCE OF HEALTH
To survive, you need water and food. You must also have and apply high personal hygiene standards.
Water
Your body loses water through normal body processes (sweating, urinating, and defecating). During average daily exertion when the atmospheric temperature is 20 degrees Celsius (C) (68 degrees Fahrenheit), the average adult loses and therefore requires 2 to 3 liters of water daily. Other factors, such as heat exposure, cold exposure, intense activity, high altitude, burns, or illness, can cause your body to lose more water. You must replace this water.
Dehydration results from inadequate replacement of lost body fluids. It decreases your efficiency and, if injured, increases your susceptibility to severe shock. Consider the following results of body fluid loss:
A 5 percent loss of body fluids results in thirst, irritability, nausea, and weakness.
A 10 percent loss results in dizziness, headache, inability to walk, and a tingling sensation in the limbs.
A 15 percent loss results in dim vision, painful urination, swollen tongue, deafness, and a numb feeling in the skin.
A loss greater than 15 percent of body fluids may result in death.
The most common signs and symptoms of dehydration are–
Dark urine with a very strong odor.
Low urine output.
Dark, sunken eyes.
Fatigue.
Emotional instability.
Loss of skin elasticity.
Delayed capillary refill in fingernail beds.
Trench line down center of tongue.
Thirst. Last on the list because you are already 2 percent dehydrated by the time you crave fluids.
You replace the water as you lose it. Trying to make up a deficit is difficult in a survival situation, and thirst is not a sign of how much water you need.
Most people cannot comfortably drink more than 1 liter of water at a time. So, even when not thirsty, drink small amounts of water at regular intervals each hour to prevent dehydration.
If you are under physical and mental stress or subject to severe conditions, increase your water intake. Drink enough liquids to maintain a urine output of at least 0.5 liter every 24 hours.
In any situation where food intake is low, drink 6 to 8 liters of water per day. In an extreme climate, especially an arid one, the average person can lose 2.5 to 3.5 liters of water per hour. In this type of climate, you should drink 14 to 30 liters of water per day.
With the loss of water there is also a loss of electrolytes (body salts). The average diet can usually keep up with these losses but in an extreme situation or illness, additional sources need to be provided. A mixture of 0.25 teaspoon of salt to 1 liter of water will provide a concentration that the body tissues can readily absorb.
Of all the physical problems encountered in a survival situation, the loss of water is the most preventable. The following are basic guidelines for the prevention of dehydration:
Always drink water when eating. Water is used and consumed as a part of the digestion process and can lead to dehydration.
Acclimatize. The body performs more efficiently in extreme conditions when acclimatized.
Conserve sweat not water. Limit sweat-producing activities but drink water.
Ration water. Until you find a suitable source, ration your water sensibly. A daily intake of 500 cubic centimeter (0.5 liter) of a sugar-water mixture (2 teaspoons per liter) will suffice to prevent severe dehydration for at least a week, provided you keep water losses to a minimum by limiting activity and heat gain or loss.
You can estimate fluid loss by several means. A standard field dressing holds about 0.25 liter (one-fourth canteen) of blood. A soaked T-shirt holds 0.5 to 0.75 liter.
You can also use the pulse and breathing rate to estimate fluid loss. Use the following as a guide:
With a 0.75 liter loss the wrist pulse rate will be under 100 beats per minute and the breathing rate 12 to 20 breaths per minute.
With a 0.75 to 1.5 liter loss the pulse rate will be 100 to 120 beats per minute and 20 to 30 breaths per minute.
With a 1.5 to 2 liter loss the pulse rate will be 120 to 140 beats per minute and 30 to 40 breaths per minute. Vital signs above these rates require more advanced care.
The information in this following post is straight from the US Army Survival Manual (no external link provided)
Water is one of your most urgent needs in a survival situation. You can’ t live long without it, especially in hot areas where you lose water rapidly through perspiration. Even in cold areas, you need a minimum of 2 liters of water each day to maintain efficiency.
More than three-fourths of your body is composed of fluids. Your body loses fluid as a result of heat, cold, stress, and exertion. To function effectively, you must replace the fluid your body loses. So, one of your first goals is to obtain an adequate supply of water.
One of the main components that you’ll want to have around the house (or apartment) during a SHTF situation is chlorine bleach. Not only can it be used for cleaning water (although boiling is hands down more effective and healthier) it is excellent for keeping things sanitary.
Unfortunately, the average shelf life of liquid bleach (being stored between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit) is around 6 months. After that, bleach will lose 20% of its strength at around the year mark and then 20% each year after that. So if you’re not vigilant about keeping it rotated, chances are when you need it for disinfecting water or to keep things clean you’ll be fresh out of bleach and luck.
There is a better option. What if you could make your own fresh chlorine bleach that could be used for both keeping things sanitary and will disinfect water? Here’s how:
How to Make Chlorine Bleach
Before we go into how to make it, I just wanted to point out the differences between this homemade chlorine bleach and your standard household Clorox variety.
First off, liquid chlorine bleach is a solution made from mostly water and 3-6% Sodium Hypochlorite. This homemade variety is made from Calcium Hypochlorite which you can easily find as “pool shock” at your pool-supplier store. Both are used throughout the world for water purification and are the main chemicals in standard household cleaning products.
There are two possible scenarios for the beginning of hard times:
Scenario One: You have some money and many of the local stores are still open for business.
Scenario Two: You don’t have any money, or you do have some money but the stores are all closed.
The overwhelming vast majority of people who have thought about the possibility of hard times are expecting the hard times to unfold according to the first scenario above. Therefore they have not done anything to prepare for any type of hard times. The reason they don’t prepare is because they believe they will have plenty of time at the beginning of the hard times to buy all the things they will need. Although this might work it is my personal opinion that this strategy has about one chance in a million of being successful.
The most likely scenario will probably be the second one above. In the second scenario:
A person will not have any money, or
A person will have some money but he or she won’t be able to get to it because the banks will all be closed, or
A person will have some money and he or she will really, really want to spend it on the things he or she desperately needs but all the stores will be closed because the stores are now empty and they have nothing left to sell.
The second scenario is the one that occurs when an area is destroyed by a hurricane or a tornado or an earthquake. The people living in Japan on March 11, 2011 discovered how quickly an unexpected hard times event (an 8.9 earthquake and a 30-foot tsunami) could completely disrupt their normal life style and thrust them into a day-by-day survival mode where they had to deal with radioactive fallout, limited amounts of food and water, and intermittent utility services. Simple things, like batteries, or a flashlight, or a battery operated radio, were unavailable in Japan after March 11 and during April of 2011. Many, many people in Japan really wanted to buy these things but all the stores in Japan were sold out of these items. The only individuals who had these items were the people who had purchased them before the earthquake and the tsunami hit the island of Japan.
Having grown up rural and now living rural, I know firsthand the types of experiences people can have when they’re caught out in the middle of nowhere and something goes wrong with their car with no help in sight. The end result was expensive towing, lots of time wasted, and in one case, one extremely cold night in a ditch.
With that being said, here are twenty five things you should always keep in your automobile for emergency’s sake. How on earth do I pack all of this up? Almost everything listed here can fit into a small, well-packed box in your trunk. You’ll be shocked how much you can fit into a well-packed shoebox and then how little space the shoebox takes up.
The three basic necessities which sustain life are:
1. air,
2. water, and
3. food.
The Rule of Threes states that a person can live for:
three-minutes without air,
three-days without water, and
three-weeks without food.
Without water or any other fluids, a person will die in about three days.
Therefore, since water is one of life’s most basic necessities, it is a subject we should not take for granted.
Some Interesting Facts about Water and The Human Body
The Human Body:
60% of our body is water.
75% of our brain is water.
83% of our blood is water and it transports nutrients and oxygen to the cells of our body.
Water is necessary to properly digest food. (Note: If you don’t have water, then do NOT eat regardless of how hungry you become.)
Our urine is almost all water and it is how our body flushes and rids itself of toxic wastes.
Water facilitates normal bowel movements which helps prevent constipation.
In one day the average person loses between 2 to 3 quarts of water through their urine, sweat, and normal breathing. If a person doesn’t replace that lost water, then dehydration begins to occur.
At 2% dehydration, thirst is perceived.
At 5% dehydration, a person becomes hot and tired, and strength and endurance decrease.
At 10% dehydration, delirium and blurred vision become a problem.
At 20% dehydration, a person dies.
Pause and reflect on that for a moment. A person loses 2 to 3 quarts of water every day as a result of their normal body functions. This means, if a person doesn’t get any fluids for about three days, they WILL die.
Most people have never thought about the above because they have NEVER been personally confronted with an extended shortage of fresh safe drinking water at any time in their lives.
Gaye Levy, Contributing Writer
