An Emergency Water Epiphany

[jezzyp]

If you want an emergency water filtration system check this out

http://www.pwgazette.com/gravity.htm

 

[mudman cj]

Great thread - thanks Sub_Umbra. The link doesn't work for me, but I just went to the root URL and found the products under discussion. The problem is, I can't get the local distributor finder to work. It gives an error. So where can these be purchased?

 

[Pistolero]

Great thread - thanks Sub_Umbra. The link doesn't work for me, but I just went to the root URL and found the products under discussion. The problem is, I can't get the local distributor finder to work. It gives an error. So where can these be purchased?

Both the Gravidyn and Ceradyn are on Amazon.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

Great thread - thanks Sub_Umbra. The link doesn't work for me, but I just went to the root URL and found the products under discussion. The problem is, I can't get the local distributor finder to work. It gives an error. So where can these be purchased?

As much as I like the product I was somewhat dissapointed at dealing with Katadyn when I bought four replacement Ceradyn elements for mine. (Since there are only two of us using it I plug one hole and only run it on two elements -- they still expire [after 3 years] before we use them up.

-EDIT 01.23.12- I just rebuilt my Drip Filter again after receiving parts I ordered from Katadyn. Now I've got TWO of the holes plugged and all of the filtration is handled by just one element. We're filtering the same amount of water and it works great! Since we fill the filter only every other day it really doesn't matter whether it takes three or six hours for it to run through.

Another approach I hadn't thought of when I wrote this years (and years) ago is that one may buy the filter elements and spigot separately and build your own filter from food-grade plastic five gallon buckets. One could also buy the parts and store them for future assembly and use.

I store new replacement elements in plastic bread-safes with a desiccant sealed inside. I placed a small terrarium hygrometer inside with the elements in such a way that it may be read through the plastic without opening the box. I keep the relative humidity inside the bread-safe between 25 and 40%. They should store nearly forever that way. I have enough to last for the rest of my life. /EDIT​

By ordering four replacement elements and using just two at a time I have a whole 'nother set in reserve.) There are many vendors who handle Katadyn throught the world.

HERE is a link to a Froogle search for:

Katadyn "Drip filter" Ceradyn

There must be lots more as I had no trouble finding elements from vendors.

If you look around you'll probably run into the "Big Berkey" that Ras_Thavas mentioned in a post above. Berkeys come in different sizes and seem to be another good solution. I think that there are probably many good solutions for different situations.

I'll replace the link in the original post with the Froogle link.

Thanks for reading.

 

[turkdc]

In regards to sanitation, one could always make a "composting toilet". Basically you wizz an poo in a 5 gallon bucket with a seat and cover your turds with sawdust. When the bucket gets full you empty it into a pile in you yard and cover it up with dried leaves/straw/sawdust. Rinse out your bucket and start over. Ultimately your turds break down with the nitrogen in your urine to form rich black composted soil.

This compost can be used on flower beds or trees or basically any growing plant that is not going to be consumed for food. I realize this is not the most appealing way of dealing with your waste, but when the s#!t hits the fan... (pun fully intended)

For more information on composting toilets do a google search for composting toilets or the humanure handbook.

Happy preparing for the worst!

 

[Sub_Umbra]

If you want an emergency water filtration system check this out

http://www.pwgazette.com/gravity.htm

That's pretty cool.

One advantage to the dedicated gravity filters is that they may be seamlessly worked into your daily life, meaning that there will be no steep learning curve (or at least one less steep learning curve) when you have to swing into emergency mode. That is a big thing for me.

I'm going to read the whole thing as soon as I finish making this red sauce. It's a great idea.

 

[meuge]

As a medical scientist I have access to distilled, deionized water. In theory, as long as it's kept in an inert container, I presume I should be able to keep it indefinitely.

 

[LukeA]

Gray water has been mentioned already a few times. Give some thought to how you'll contain gray water at the various stages before it gets ultimately used to flush a toilet.

In any emergency, modern "Water Saver" toilets are both a blessing and a curse. They are a blessing in that they will use less of your precious gray water with each force flush. (A force flush is when you flush a toilet by just pouring water into the bowl to flush it. Don't fill the toilet tank with gray water as it will eventually clog up the works in the tank.) The bad news of Water Saving toilets in an emergency is pretty much the same as in normal times -- they often just don't work very well and are more prone to getting stopped up. This is exacerbated when the water is off because you're probably going to want to set up some kind of schedule of flushing in an attempt to make your gray water go farther -- perhaps only force flushing 1-3 times in each 24 hour period, depending on how many are in your party.

Our toilet actually uses a little less than 2.5 gallons per flush but it is always somewhat marginal in the way it deals with paper. The last thing you want to do is plug up your toilet during any kind of emergency. IMO the best approach to conserving gray water in a crisis is to dispose of the toilet paper separately. We stock various sizes of Zip-Lok HD Freezer bags and after we use one we don't necessarily throw it right out. We use many of these bags for organizational purposes and once used in that way they are no longer suitable for food. Instead of throwing them away we keep them for other tasks until, like gray water, they get used enough to get rid of. We kept a one gallon Zip-Lok Freezer bag near the stool and just put all of the paper in it. In this way the our commode never stopped up even at a highly reduced daily flush rate. (When the FDA debriefed my wife they really liked the idea of separating out the toilet paper from the rest of the waste.)

In our house, we have two of these. They each only use 1.6gpf, and adding gray water manually won't have any serious effects on them. And they're powerful. In the years since we've owned them, I've never clogged one in normal use to the point where the weight of water from a second flush couldn't clear it.

 

[paulr]

Good post SU. Some thoughts:

1. I'd worry about more than just bacterial crap in the water, i.e. Katrina dumped all kinds of horrible chemical contaminants in the water too. Filtration can't remove all those chemicals, nor can it remove dissolved solids like salt. Frankly I'd be looking into solar distillers. There are some plans floating around for one about 2.5x5 feet made from a sheet of plywood (basically a box a few inches deep, sealed with silicone caulk and painted black inside) covered with a glass shower door at a slightly sloping angle. Sunlight heats the water which evaporates in the box, condenses on the underside of the glass, and runs down to the edge where you have a rubber tube dripping it into a bucket or bottle. A box that size apparently makes about 1 gallon/day of distilled water, and you could of course set up several. Might be a problem in stealth mode I guess.

2. As someone mentioned, plasticizers in garbage cans are a concern. Some determined googling found sources of food grade polyethylene bags large enough to line garbage bags with. So I'd line the cans with those if I were storing drinking water in them. I put some url's on the equipped.org forum and might go over there to try to find them (or someone else could).

3. The under-bed things are called Aquaflex tanks (aquaflex.net) and they come in various sizes and are much cheaper than 55 gallon drums.

4. An even cheaper large storage container, it seems to me, is a kiddie swimming pool. A 10 foot diameter, 3 foot deep one is 100 bucks or so and you can put it in the basement and fill it from a hose. You can get food grade hose with regular garden hose fittings too, from places that sell wine making supplies.

5. But again (this doesn't apply to me since I rent a small apt.) if you have your own property I think what you really want is an underground cistern of a few thousand gallons. These aren't all that expensive and they are well protected and out of sight.

6. What I really want is an RO desalinator ($$$). I live a mile or so from the ocean so have an infinite supply of undrinkable sea water available. A desalinator and an energy source to run it potentially solves the whole water problem.

7. Other than that, in those long term semi-teotwawki situations, you can collect runoff from your roof in a rain barrel, getting 100's of gallons from a rainfall.

8. I went overseas last summer and stayed where it was mosquito hell at night. The locals burn some kind of obnoxious incense to make them go away but I never like chemicals. I bought a mesh (mosquito net) tent and put my bed inside it and aside from a little inconvenience getting in and out, it COMPLETELY solved my mosquito problem. It only cost 10 bucks or so in local funny money (probably would be 5x that much here, but that's still cheap). However the mosquitos there weren't very active during the day, so I was only in the tent at night, mostly during sleeping hours.

9. SU's preparation requirements are unusual not because everyone else ignores the problem but that I think most of us aren't as determined as he was to shelter in place. E.g. I rent a crappy little apartment so if some situation arose where the feds urged me to evacuate, I'd put the important stuff in my car and clear out. Basically I don't have much there that's real valuable or hard to replace. My laptop computer, digicam, and my nicer flashlights will fit in a backpack, my crappy furniture I won't miss, and the other stuff I'd see about putting in some kind of claim for afterwards, but even if it was all simply lost, well, it's just stuff and I'm not that attached to it. So whatever preparations I have are for shorter term situations.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

The "Toxic Soup" after Katrina in New Orleans was confined to Mayor Nagin's mind. While the EPA couldn't get on Larry King like Nagin, they were here every day testing water at grid points and they did their best to denounce Nagin's highly politicized scare mongering. He had his own loopy political reasons for those daily rants -- but he doesn't say it anymore. It served his purpose and he has moved on. By the way, don't forget that if he thought for one moment he could have anything to do with administering a fed toxic waste cleanup grant he would never shut up about it. The EPA has stated repeatedly that the flood waters of Katrina were like flood waters anywhere else -- contaminated, not toxic.

I'll admit that there may have been some highly localized toxic contamination but they happened in places way below sea level where you'd be pushin' for a Darwin Award just living there anyway -- even before the storm. Those places are not representative of anything that will be inhabitable by humans for decades, if ever. The "Toxic Soup" claims came from a man that only fools believed, even before the storm.

While I'm no fan of the EPA, if there were anything to the "Toxic Soup" rants of the mayor -- they would never let it go.

I would also add that we never filtered any post-K water (allthough we could have if we had to) -- as we had enough pre-K water on hand to last for the whole event.

...So I'd line the cans with those if I were storing drinking water in them...

I don't think I ever advocated storing water in garbage cans. Filling a disinfected garbage can with water right brfore a storm would not be construed as "storing water" in them IMO. When I think of "storing water" I tend to think of six to eighteen months -- which is a whole 'nother animal.

It should be noted that when my wife was extensively debriefed by the FDA they raised no concerns about our water. On the contrary, they were impressed. Then there is also the defacto argument that we suffered no ill effects from our brief storage of water in those containers.

While generally unstated, it should also be noted that there was no real black or white in Katrina -- or any other disaster, for that matter. What I'm trying to say is that there are no hard figures of how many died from misadventure and stress after their decision to evacuate, whether they left before or after the storm. There are no figures that make sense of the deaths that have occured from stress after many returned home. This is all relavent to this discussion -- although I'm not capable of explaining why. I live in a city with less than 50% of the population it had two years ago and yet the death rate is four times as high as it was. Stress is what is killing them/us.

It may be very hard to line up the threats in the order that makes the most sense. I have been here the whole time and I have yet to hear of one person dying of any kind of toxic poisoning -- but death is everywhere.

 

[paulr]

I don't think I'd believe the EPA about something being poisonous or not. They said the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe after 9/11 when their own data said the exact opposite, and there are many cops and firefighters with resperatory illnesses now because of that fib of theirs.

Reasonable point about the garbage cans. You may not have been suggesting them for storage but when I looked into the PE bag thing, it was indeed with the idea of using the cans that way.

If the death rate is 4x higher, what is being stated as causes of death? I.e. if there's more cancer or heart failure, that could result from chemical contaminants without being listed as "poisoning".

I still have a bunch of gallon jugs under my sink that I filled with tap water before Y2K. I don't think I'd drink it at this point but I'm sort of interested in testing some of it somehow, just to find out what really happens when you store untreated water for that long.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

...If the death rate is 4x higher, what is being stated as causes of death? I.e. if there's more cancer or heart failure, that could result from chemical contaminants without being listed as "poisoning".

Again, STRESS. This is not 'rocket surgery.' Is it really that hard to visualize how destroying +200,000 homes, 70% of businesses, and uprooting close to half a million people from their 'normal' lives may be stressful? Remember that those uprooted may never really come back because the place they left no longer exists. I'm not just talking about physically damaged property. I'm saying that EVERYTHING for the people who lived here has changed. Politics, culture, economics, health care, infrastructure. EVERYTHING. Changes are stressors. I highly recommend reading a pre-K book about disasters called "The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster." It is a great read about the effects of disasters so great that they destroy whole cities. The fact that stress and the deaths caused by it may be hard to quantify does not mean that it is not a major factor and unlike the 'toxic soup' theory of Mayor Ray 'Chocolate City' Nagin which has not been born out by any facts or studies, it is a certainty that there are a plethora of post-K related stresses -- and stress beyond a certain point is very bad. Very much has been written stress in post-K New Orleans and it is out there for anyone who looks for it.

Let me give you a little anecdote about stress. I have an old friend of mine whose house was destroyed by the storm. He spent three days on his roof with his dog after the storm. He's a few years older than I so he's probably around sixty. He lived in the house he grew up in -- the house his father left him. Everything in the part of town he lived in was destroyed. I mention this because all of his neighbors, everyone he knew as a kid lost everything, not just their houses but their entire way of life. Their jobs, their churches, their grocery stores, their schools -- and a million other thing most take for granted every day.

Anyway, I talked to him after he came back to the city eight weeks after being forced out -- after getting a Pacemaker -- after finally being able to return to some semblance of his old job (connected to a tourist industry that has morphed drastically since the storm.) I see him three times a month and about six months after the storm he told me something that was really interesting. He casually mention that he personally knew thirteen people who had killed themselves since the storm. After thinking about it I came to the conclusion that it was probably because of the neighborhood he grew up in. He just happened to know a very large slice of very stressed out people. His story isn't that odd here -- that's why they called it a disaster.

I think that most who have not really looked into post-disaster scenarios have no comprehension of the breadth and depth of the changes wrought by these events.

Here's another example. There are no psychiatric beds in the New Orleans area. Try to imagine what that would mean to your town if it happened there. Here, if someone calls 911 about someone acting strangely on the street, for example, there is no place for the police to take them. Even with our greatly reduced population all of psychiatric beds in the entire region are always full to capacity with people brought there from New Orleans. So what happens to nuts on the streets of New Orleans? Very often the NOPD shoots (and kills) them. Don't forget to take your meds.

Mrs Umbra and I also knew a guy who cut up his girlfriend and cooked her post-K. Many people who knew him asked me why he did it. I doubt it was the toxic soup. While I can't ever prove how useless the EPA is or is not there are some things that are very easy to see and understand here.

...I still have a bunch of gallon jugs under my sink that I filled with tap water before Y2K. I don't think I'd drink it at this point but I'm sort of interested in testing some of it somehow, just to find out what really happens when you store untreated water for that long.

Wow! From Y2K? When we moved to a new place a block away ten months ago I opened a few bottles of water that I had gotten less than a year before, after K. The water tasted very much like plastic.

 

[Pistolero]

It's essentially a very severe/extreme case of PTSD, right?

Isn't that why experts or "been there, done that" people say that the most important tool in your survival kit is the WILL to survive.
That if you are not careful, your mind will kill you if you focus on the "OMG, WHY ME, WHY THIS?!?! WHY GOD WHY?!?!"

 

[jtr1962]

Relevant to the thread:

Water taps run dry in Baghdad

Very interesting thread. This and several other similar threads are giving me a lot to think about. While we're not in an area which would be inundated in even a Cat5 hurricane, there would doubtless be a long time where basic services didn't exist. We're already doing some things right, like disposing of cat waste/spoiled food in plastic bags, but it's obvious we should be better prepared.

 

[TOTJ]

I know a little about disaster supplies. I set up disaster plans for corp.
First of all the 55 gallon water barrels only cost $42.95 from my company.
I have 2 at my house for a family of 3 plus a dog.
Water Preserver is the first and only product regognized and proven effective for 5-year water storage, registered and licensed by federal and state EPA and it runs about $12.00.
Water Preserver is a proprietary formula of stabilized, ph-balanced sodium hypochlorite with highly effective residual action that kills bacteria., viruses, mole, and fungus.
Keep the barrels in a shadded area, no direct sunlight and never store your water on cemen, put it up on wood. Mine are on pallets.
I also have emergincy water in the form of USCG box containers 8.54OZ
per box. 3 boxes per day per person for 5 days incase we have to leave our home. I know this does not sound like alot of water but it is enough to keep kidney function going. I also have a drip filter system and
water purification tabblets. All of my supplies have a 5 year shelf life.

 

[TOTJ]

It's essentially a very severe/extreme case of PTSD, right?

Isn't that why experts or "been there, done that" people say that the most important tool in your survival kit is the WILL to survive.
That if you are not careful, your mind will kill you if you focus on the "OMG, WHY ME, WHY THIS?!?! WHY GOD WHY?!?!"

That is why it is important to be prepared. People who are prepared normaly are less likly to panic and to think things out befor acting.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

That is why it is important to be prepared. People who are prepared normaly are less likly to panic and to think things out befor acting.

That is sooo true. And important. Our preparations and the many options they provided made us much more able to deal with the whole K thing on a rational level. This aspect can not be overstated.

It is a no-brainer that most would probably rather sit comfortably inside their own homes than fight with a mob for water from a truck or helo for their kids. There are all kind of things you won't have to fight for if you think about it a bit and start putting a few things aside. There are a handful of items from potassium iodide to food that could put you up close and personal with mobs of strangers that may be avoided with just a little forethought and planning.

Aside from avoiding mixing it up with the masses in most emergencies you will probably have other tasks to perform which may be more important to you and your's than standing in some line all day. You may actually have critical things you need to be accomplish.

TOTJ has really hit the mark on this. If you ever see people forced into doing really dumb things because they weren't prepared you'll never forget it. Just a week or two of supplies will put you way ahead of the people who will end up on CNN. Try to think ahead and give yourself a break.

 

[fieldops]

Sub, I was wondering how your neighbors and others nearby reacted. In other disasters I have seen, people sometimes became vultures and cut throats, once they realized you had something they didn't. I suspect that you tried to keep a very low profile. I always think of that Twilight zone episode about the doctor who built a bomb shelter and had a party on for his friendly neighbors. Once the conelrad alert sounded, they were willing to kill each other to get into the shelter.
I have a good deal of supplies here, but I try to divulge as little as possible to people nearby.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

fieldops,

We stayed out of sight. We could see out but no one could see in. After the storm there were about twenty people on our block who had went through the storm there. From what I could see they looked like they were acting pretty civilized. They were not very well prepared. They were in denial. One was murdered by members of the NOPD. Within nine days after the storm we were the only two left on the block.

I met Mrs Umbra in technical theatre and we used some things learned there to make it look like we were gone:

...Here is one of the tricks I used:

http://www.......net/cpf/lock/a.html

Yes, there were a few others, but not many when you consider the population pre-K. According to the Mayor there were only 400 people in town three weeks later when Rita rolled through. Of course, he also said that there was not one murder in the six weeks that followed Katrina -- and reasoned estimates run somewhere around 250 actual murders in the six weeks post-K. Time will tell.

It wasn't as bad (for us) as people think. Most are unable to comprehend the fact that we were pretty well prepared. They don't really know what that means and what kind of an impact having that much control over our situation gave us. They think we ate dog poo or something. They just can't see it. This goes right back to TOTJ's post about panic, above.

 

[creampuff]

Hi Sub,
Thanks for this thread. Living in earthquake territory I keep several flats of bottled water, but doing an inventory, I realized I should plan for a longer stay just in case.

I just ordered for a First Need Deluxe water purifier. Does any backpacker/hikers out there have any experience with this one?

http://www.generalecology.com/portablesystem.htm