Getting ready to get ready

Since I have been working on getting together my emergency supplies for the past few weeks, I thought now would be a good time to discuss. My emergency kit will work for a terrorist attack, an earthquake (likely where I live) or a pandemic flu, if it comes. It would be easy to gather supplies if you had money to spare and space to put them in, but most of us do not have those luxuries. On my sidebar I have included websites which offer many different lists of supplies that you should have. No one list seems to be the same as another. I can just share mine with you and tell you that the cost was not overwhelming, although I would rather have spent the money on other things.

Water. Water. Water. More Water.

This seems to be the recurring theme from all the emergency preparedness sites. At first I was thinking just to use bottled water, the 5 gallon kind from the delivery truck. I realized that it would be a huge waste of money, as some of the use is not for drinking, but for washing, cleaning, laundering and doing dishes. I found Coleman plastic water containers at several stores. I purchased mine through Amazon, just because they always come through in a timely fashion. If you Google search for Coleman water containers, stores are available all over. I bought the 5 gallon jugs. I purchased 10 of them for my non-drinking water supply. I filled them with tap water, after cleaning, and stored them on the back patio. These containers should probably be dumped and refilled after 3 to 6 months, but remember this is not drinking water!

Don't forget the other places in your house that have water stored, such as the water heater and the toilet tanks. Water can be decontaminated using household bleach (unscented). There are purification kits, but I'll just use bleach for mine.

My drinking water supply is going to be the bottled water. I have "hoarded" seven 5 gallon bottles of drinking water. I also purchased at Costco the 24 bottle boxes of individual bottled water. I have about 5 of these collected so far. These are stackable and do not take up to much space, so again, they are stored on my patio, under a tarp. Don't forget the pets when you are planning your water consumption needs. My dogs are my family too, so I need to provide for them. (Who can forget the heartrending pictures following Katrina of survivors and their animals?)

I am figuring, that if some type of quarantine exists and we do not leave the house for an extended period of time, I do not need to do laundry for quite awhile. Since nothing would be wrong with our clothes, sheets,underwear and the like, we could use them until it becomes necessary to wash clothes. I think water would be quite precious, and if you don't know how long you need to make it last, do not waste it. I read recently that you should drink the necessary amount of water and not try to save water by rationing it. If you run out, you will just need to find more. If you become too dehydrated by rationing water, you won't be able to go out and find it. Made a lot of sense to me.

Since I live in the traffic jammed Southern California area and since I spend a lot of time in my car, I keep bottled water in the car at all times. I used to just keep one flat, now I keep two (48 bottles). My car also has a change of clothes, a good pair of walking shoes and a backpack. I'll walk if I have to in order to get home.

Tomorrow I'll get into supplies (non-food items). Any comments on the water ideas?