English: Bottled water fills an aisle in a supermarket (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the cities in my area have been having a problem with a broken water main which has left the city with a population of about 13,000 people either with no running water at all or under a boil order depending on where they are. This has been going on since Tuesday and the residents still might not have good water until after the weekend, the city is providing each house in the city with a package of bottled water but of course they have to wait in line for it and last night they had 1500 cars show up for water, I for one would not want to have to wait in line for water in temperatures that were in the 20′s. This is just one of the reasons my family stores water.

According to FEMA guidelines you should store enough water for 3 days of use and each member of your family needs 1 gallon per day. I try to keep my family stocked for at least 1 week and have more than 1 gallon per day, it averages out to about 2-3 gallons per day. According to FEMA the average healthy adult should drink half a gallon of water per day which leaves the other half-gallon of water for cooking and personal hygiene which just doesn’t seem very adequate.

Water storage (very basic):

If you are going to be re-using plastic beverage containers for water storage follow these guidelines.

When possible use BPA free containers!

You can re-use bottles from soda and empty water bottles, we use a lot of the Vitamin Water bottles.

Make sure to properly clean all bottles and use a little bit of bleach with water swished around the inside of the bottle to kill any lingering bacteria and rinse. Normally if you are using tap water that has been treated with chlorine from a city source it is ok just to fill the container up to the top of the neck and tightly screw on lid. Make sure to avoid using milk gallons due to the type of plastic used.

Make sure to store your containers off concrete floors since it will leach into the water. The water will absorb odors from things sitting around it so be careful where you keep your water. I like to rotate my water out every 6 months or so that way nothing sits for too long.

English: Images of bottled water (Photo credit: Wikipedia)