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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 we will try the water boxes for our 5 and 19 month old and the bottles for hubby, myself, and my 14 year old. I like the idea of having an additional bag of water so that may happen as well
We have some of the water pouches kept aside, but in our medical kit (because you need good, safe water for so many things medical). For drinking/other use we have some 2 gallon jugs. Last year we lost water for a few days, and a quick trip to the store netted us some of those, which turned out to be lifesavers. So I rotate/refill them every so often, so we have a backup stash as needed, sitting in the bottom of our pantry.
Yes Tom! I keep extra water with our medical supplies too!
I have a bit of a mix. I have two liters of water pouches in various pockets of my backpack. My rolling suitcase gets packed with at least two 2 liter bottles (soda bottles refilled) if I have to evacuate, and there is a Costco sized case of water bottles in the car. I have two large dogs, so even in non-emergencies I plan on having extra water.
In addition to all of that that, I just got a Camelbak (it holds 2 liters). While I wouldn’t store water in my Camelbak, it only takes a minute to fill it- yes, I timed it. In an emergency situation, it is all too easy to forget to drink until you are severely dehydrated. I’ve found that my Camelbak makes it easy to stay hydrated on hikes and around the house. Hopefully it is just as effective in an emergency.
Misty,
Another thing to think about in water bottles is empty Clorox jugs (has to be the regular Clorox not scented or with other additives). These have Clorox permeated into the plastic so none has to be added for long term storage. Also if sheltering in place cut off water to hot water heater. This will give you 40, 50, or more gallons of good water. Also water already in water pipes can give a few more gallons off good water if you cut off water supply coming into the house.
We have bought a water pouch thing sorry I can’t remember the name of it. But you can put water in it and put it on you back or front if need be.
We have one rinsed and cleaned 2 liter soda bottle in each backpack filled with water. This gets rotated every 3 months with fresh water. In addition, we have water filters and water purifier tablets in each pack.
Good job on the rotation!
Have you seen/used/have any comments about the water filter straws?
Stephen, I took a look at the straws at Wal-Mart the other day. Like the bottles, that particular brand is designed to be used following water purification tablets. There are probably better bottles and straws that don’t need to be paired.
You can watch a video about the Frontier here: https://youtu.be/Ehf-liOalQI
the Frontier Pro here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2euTHZm-5OU&feature=share&list=PL3A7304347F494B62
and see comparison list of a bunch of different types of water filters (including straws) here: https://www.shelfreliance.com/files/materials/product-sheets/Water-Filtration-Spec-Sheet.pdf
I plan to buy a couple of water filters for bottles and a case or two extra of water. I am just getting started with the preparation so this is all new to me.
I have water bottles for when we need something portable and I’m working on bulk home storage for situations when the local water supply might be unsafe or unavailable.
I plan to do the boxes of water. We use refillable bottles at our house, so I’m afraid the water bottles would expire before we got through them. I like the idea of large barrels in the basement though, we don’t have any water down there!
Love the idea of filling the detergent bottles for cleaning. We just bought a water storage “bag” for our bathtub, they’re pretty inexpensive & they have a spout. That water will keep potable for about four wks. In our 72 hr. kits, we have emergency water filter straws that will filter about 20 gallons. You just drink straight out of the straw. We also have about 80 gallons of water in our garage &several cases of bottled water as well. Thanks again for the series…every time it cycles around, I get new ideas!
Great post. I’ve been wondering about water storage and what/how much we should have. My husband has been buying cases of bottles lately and we also have 55 gal rain barrels but we just drained them for winter. Ill have to work on a solution for storing water year round. Thanks for the tips!
We keep rotating cases of bottled water. We also have several filters since we do a lot of hiking. I would really like to do the pouches as well. I had never thought of 55 gallon drums, but I think we will definitely be doing that as well!
Thank you so much for this blog, I really love it!
For sheltering in place, we have a Water Bob, several cases of bottled water, refilled water bottles frozen in the freezer, and several 2-gallon jugs of Ozarka bottled water. We also have a 1,000 gallon rain water recovery system we use for watering the garden, but could be used to help flush toilets or showering if necessary. If we had a filtering system on it we could use it for drinking water. Getting a filter is our next step.
We live out in the country, and hope we will not have to evacuate, but it is good to be prepared. We could fill a cooler with frozen bottles to put in the car. I’m not walking anywhere. We live more than 20 miles from the closest grocery store!
I am going to start out with water bottles in everyone’s kits – an increasing number with age. We also have two reclaimed liquid drums from a bottling company that have been sitting around empty for years. I’m making it a goal to get them rinsed and filled as a non-potable water source.
I still need to add water to everyone’s back packs. We did have a nice stock of water bottles, but had a family reunion and now they are all gone. Time to go to the store!
We are going to start out with good old water bottles.
Hi,
I’ve been on this website most of the day and there is a lot of information here. I’m planning on picking up water in bottles for storage, just in case we need it.
Thanks,
Mo
So glad the site has been helpful Modesto!
I have finally had the time to review this site after finding it on Pinterest several months ago. I will be making time today to complete Week 1 and 2 and review Week 3. Thanks for providing this!
You are welcome Maria! GLad to have you here!
I’m glad to be here for the 3rd go around…totally forgot that I took water bottles out of my kits & didn’t replace them. Rookie mistake. Guess I have some homework this week. 🙂
Just thought I’d throw this out there…as people are gathering their water storage around their homes to keep in mind they don’t want to store the water directly on the cement/dirt. It is better to have it stacked on shelves or to place a pallet or come 2x4s under it. If the surface becomes heated (like a patio outside) it could potentially leach stuff that could contaminate the water.
Also for people storing their water outside in freezing country…make sure they allow some room in their container for the water to expand while it freezes so it won’t crack and ruin their container.
Thanks for the tips TIffany. And not a rookie mistake. I found my kids water bottle on the garage floor a while back no where near the kit. Not even sure how it got there!
I have a large rolling icechest full of the 16.9 oz bottled water. I also have 2 gallons of water per person if able to stay in our home. We are hoping that if we have to leave we can put all the water in the covered trailer for transport. I also have 2 of the 16.9 oz waters in each back pack. I might should add a little more.
At a minimum, you should have 3 gallons per person (FEMA recommends an absolute minimum of 1 gallon per person for 3 days). But you might have that much if you count the ice chest too!
We have a 5 gallon water jug that we have with our 72 hour kits, but it would be a pain to haul. We also have 5 rain barrels. We are going to get a portable berkey water bottle or a portable filter so we can filter on the go. We aren’t sure what to do about carrying the water, but will probably just use the 16 oz water bottles. Don’t have that part down yet. Thanks for the info. Great site.
Sounds like the start of a great plan Tyler!
Wow I’ve never even thought about being prepared for something out of my control! Thanks for the good info and we definitely will be making our kits! We’ve decided for now that bottled water will be best for us, but will also be storing away 5 gallon jugs in the garage!!
Welcome to the site Ashley. I hope you continue to find it helpful!
we are a family of six like you, so i’m following your lead by adding small bottles to the adult packs and kid packs and also having a stock of big bottles in a wheeled suitcase.
Six is such a great number!
We are also using water bottles for now, but have also purchased a portable filter that we can carry with us. We haven’t had a chance to test it out, but we hope it is a better long-term option! Great idea to fill a rolling suitcase with water!
You may not want to “test” the filter Jodi. Most have a shelf life of about 6 months once they’ve been used once. If you do test it out, make sure you have a backup that you have not used.