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Welcome to week #1 in the “72 Hour Kit Ideas: A week by week approach” series.
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Week #1: Water to Carry
Water is to essential life. You cannot survive without water. For that reason, water should be the first thing you add to your 72 hour supplies. But there is one problem: water is heavy! The recommended 3 gallons per person (for a 3 day period) weighs 25 pounds (8.33 gallons per pound)!
You will not be able to carry 25 pounds of water plus all your other supplies. Instead, I recommend packing just enough drinking water for the first day. So this week, add 1/2 gallon of water per person to your pack. (The other 1/2 gallon of water that is recommended by FEMA is for cleaning etc).
This purpose of this 1/2 gallon is to get you through until you can find an alternate water source. Next week, we will talk about how to make that alternate source safe to drink.
Ideas / Options:
Consider the following as you decide which will work best for your family.
- Water Bottles
- Water Boxes
- Water Pouches
What We Have Done In Our Family:
I like the ease of rotating and purchasing water bottles. We have eight 16.9
ounce bottles and 3 water boxes in each of our large adult kits. We also have 3 water boxes in each of our 6 year old boy’s kits.
How About You?
Leave me a comment and tell what type of water you will be adding to your kit supplies
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| Week #26: Rotate, Update, Test and Review | Week #2: Making Water Safe | Series Intro: 72 Hour Kit Series, A Week by week approach |
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Becky is a wildlife enthusiast and pet and livestock care expert with a diploma in canine nutrition. With over a decade of experience in animal welfare, Becky lends her expertise to Simple Family Preparedness through insightful info about pets, livestock, bee keeping, and the practicalities of homesteading.
(I think I may have just posted this to week one. Sorry!)
We increased our shelter-in-place water from 3 gallons per person to 4. There is enough room in our water storage cupboard to stack two layers of 2-liter or half-gallon bottles, so I will ask DH to install a shelf. We don’t buy soda for the house and only get juice when someone is sick, but I will likely be able to add 2-3 more gallons for each of us if we have our usual number of winter colds!
Way to be positive about the winter colds Aimee!
Absolutely beautiful and informative site, thank you. I have filled three one gallon water jugs so far and procured a small, personal purification straw, but I don’t think I can depend on that. I need another six more gallons to complete it, for my family. Waiting until the orange and apple juice jugs have been used up first.
Sounds like a plan Marlon!
Just found your site via pinterest. Love it. I am in process of updating our 72 hour kits and this blog is perfect! I really like the manageable chunks of info.
Welcome Colleen! Glad to have you here!
I don’t like water bottles because they are so environmentally unfriendly. Plus, you can refill a water bottle from the tap every day for about 10 years for the cost of that bottle from the store. I use gallon milk jugs stored in standard milk crates. They stack and can to in the car or get strapped to our heavy duty luggage cart if we have to walk. I’m still working on a simple system to rotate the water.
Be careful with the milk jugs Greg. The sugars in them can’t ever be fully rinsed out and they can make your water unsafe to drink. The non-refrigerated juice bottles work better or soda bottles work better, but bring up some of the same concerns you mentioned about water bottles. Maybe water grade containers?
I have cases of small water bottles, in addition to several gallon jugs. I just found your blog and I love it! I work in emergency preparedness, but was not personally prepared at home. Thank you!
Welcome to the site Cassie!
We have juice bottles cleaned and filled with water that I plan on rotating. And instant drink mix to add to it to give it some taste.
Drink mixes will come in handy if you ever really need to drink it!
We have been saving all the empty 2L bottles from our cub scout meetings and have been cleaning and refilling them with water and bleach. I do want to get some of the juice box style water containers as I think that would go over better with out kids. Kids seem to drink anything from a box and straw lol.
So true! What is it that makes it so cool?
We have 2 liter bottles stored, but I don’t know how handy they would be to grab and run. We also have a 55 ga. drum, but that is not going to be moved. 🙂 However, since I won the last drawing, I will have a lot more options! Yay! Thank you again!
Also, since I won last week, is it ok for me to enter the rest of the drawings?
Yes, Angie! I’ve had quite a handful of people win more than once!
Since I am only just starting my kit now (I’ve honestly never thought about emergency preparedness before), I think I will be doing the water bottles out of convenience. Thanks for making such a clear, step-by-step guide for creating these kits!
Sounds like a great place to start Erica!
I’m glad I found this blog. It gives me the weekly inspiration to keep these tasks OFF of the back burner.
For my family’s water supply comes in many forms. I have two large containers that I keep filled and ready to go into a car. I find reasons to rotate these (such as taking them on camping trips) to make sure the water just doesn’t sit. Each backpack has purification drops and a filtering water bottle. I know there will be a steripen in my future soon.
Thanks for the insights and ideas.
Steve
You are welcome Steve! I’m glad the site is helpful!
Right now I have regular water bottles and empty 5 gallon collapsible containers and water purifying tablets in my kits. But lots more than that at home.
You can only carry so much! I’ve got lots more at home too.
We live in Tornado Alley so we are making our kit for our basement so we will go with cases of water bottles stored down there. But we are also going to pack individual water bottles in our backpacks for when we go camping or just out and about.
Sounds smart Suellen!
I have a question – water that has a shelf life – does that mean that after the date it is no good to drink at all? I’ve always wondered this for seeing the date on water bottles. Does that mean if I stored water in jugs from my own faucet (which is well water) it would be no good after a while? I thought it would be nice to store water aside and put it in our car if we had an emergency and were able to drive away. Thanks
Yes, water has a shelf life. But that doesn’t mean you can’t drink it after a certain time, it just means it could be potentially unsafe…mold, other contaminants etc. Read this post for more about water storage: https://simplefamilypreparedness.com/category/water-tips/
I’m doing the water bottles but I wondered why you wouldn’t include water purification tablets as well?
Of the water you keep stored in juice bottles, did you add any bleach to it? I came across a web article on storing water (from sources such as city or county water) and it recommended treating it with bleach as you describe if you intended store it. Thanks!
I don’t. That is typically only necessary if you don’t plan to rotate it every 6 months and / or it didn’t come from a pre-treated water source. However, I know there is still a possibility of mold growth, so I also store many filters I could use to make the water safe if it became unsafe for any reason. I just can’t stand the taste of bleach!
My husband and I have already put together our Disaster Kits, BUT…..we do not have enough water! Thank you for putting together such extensive and “GOOD”
information on Disaster Planning! There are a few other items we don’t have, so I’ll be updating my kit this weekend! Thank you again for this information, not only is it extensive, it could just possibly save someones life!
Sincerely,
Halle’ Hudson
Spring, TX
Thanks Halle! I appreciate your generous comment!
I will purchase gallon and small bottles of water to store in 2nd fridge (which is too empty right now anyway). The remainder will be stored in a rolling suitcase or plastic bin for quick travel. My son wants to set up a rain barrel, which would serve many purposes if we were stranded at home.
Rain barrels are great Karen! I don’t have one, but I’d love it!
The weight of water is one of our biggest concerns. Being on the back side of 50 and not in the best of shape 🙁 Well, there’s another thing to work on!
Get a good filter (week #3) Val! They are much lighter! (-:
I have bought the Berkey Sport water bottles in all of our backpacks to filter water as we go also.
Love it!
We have some pouches in each of our bags. We also have at least one water bottle with a twist on lid in each bag. If we were able to get clean water, then we would have something to put it in. Or if for one reason one of our kids didn’t finish their water pouch, we could pour it in their bottle without losing any of it. You know how kids can be.
We also have 4-55gal drums, lots of juice and soda bottles, and cases of bottles. We will take what we can, depending on the situation. In one of our packs we have a filter also. Our problem is we are running out of room to put our water.
is there a link that i can download the series at one time. i would like to make myself a document/checklist with all this information but it is time consuming downloading each week since is just found it today. thank you!
I haven’t created anything like that yet Nikki, but it is a great idea! I should do it…I’ll add it to the list of projects I’m working on. For now, you can find links to each week here:
https://simplefamilypreparedness.com/survival-kit-ideas-week-by-week/
You could copy and paste each post into a Word Doc (or similar)
Drinking water from plastic containers is a health risk, with all the plastic chemicals leaching into the water. I just don’t see using plastic bottles as a viable solution to this. It is also an environmental disaster that they are used so much, even if they are recycled, as it is using resources unsustainably. I scanned all the comments to see if anyone addresses this, but came up with nothing. For water storage that isn’t going in a backpack, I would recommend glass 1/2 to 1 gallon jars. Your water will stay cleaner and taste better over time.
Misty, have you noted anywhere in your posts more information on your 55 gallon drums? What ones are you using? How often do you put new water in it? Could this be used to water your plants outside and refilled with fresh water that is plastic-chemical-leech free?
I use the 55 gallon drums from Shelf Reliance that I link to here: yourownhomestore.com/2011/02/water-storage/
My goal is to rotate it every six months, but I don’t always meet that goal! (-: That is one reason I’m glad I also have a filter in case I had to filter the water in my drums.
And I did a post on ways to rotate water in a 55 gallon drum here: https://simplefamilypreparedness.com/2011/08/rotating-your-water-storage/
I don’t put bleach in my water (another reason I have a good filter), so I’m fine using it to water plants!
We already have 11 2-liter bottles full of water, but I stopped adding to it because we stopped buying soda, and we only buy juice when someone is ill. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for this project, we both came down with bad colds, so 2 more bottles will join those later this week. That will give us a little over a gallon per person per day for three days.
I was stumped at first about how to add water to our bug-out-bags (BOBs) without making them too heavy. Digging through the back of my cupboards turned up four plastic and metal bottles we rarely use. If I fill all four, that will be about 48 oz for each of us, and I see will will be covering ways to sanitize more water next week.
One more idea: I plan to also add some extra things like Crystal Light On-the-Go packets or individual cold-brew tea bags. Consider them the beverage equivalent of having a chocolate bar in your BOB.
We’ve mostly used up the water bottles I had for storage, so I really need to replace those! I’m new to your blog and this series. It will give me a kick in the pants to actually get this stuff done. Thank you!
I never thought to use a rolling suitcase to store water, makes perfect sense though. My kids are also more inclined to drink from a juice box, so the water boxes look like a good option for our little ones.