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Friday, October 28, 2011

Reply: Water in your Preparations

Hi Fernando,
Read your recent article on water.  Excellent.  I do have a question though in regards to filtration.  I have a Culligan, 3 filter, reverse osmosis filtration system in my house.   Do you think it is necessary to store water since I have this filtration system already in place?  By the way, I live in the Midwest U.S., and the only natural disaster we would come across here would be a tornado.  What really concerns me is the pending economic collapse and how that would effect the water supply and water pressure.  Your thoughts?    And as always, thank you for all your blog, your insights and great book.  Worth every penny.
Paul

Hi Paul, thanks.
As I said in the previous post, yes, I’d store water none the less in case whatever source you have is compromised. Think of it as cash in the bank compared to cash in your home safe, better yet, precious metals in your safe. Whatever happens you still have some wealth at home. Same thing with water, whatever happens having some water stored home is so much better than not having any, even if the amount you can store is limited.
Your concerns aren’t that far off. The water infrastructure does suffer when the budget cuts start, it gets worse with inflation and the price of the supplies and parts needed going way up.
As the economic crisis continues it shouldn’t be a surprise to see a) the quality of water going down ( and the laws being modified so as to make lower quality standards legal) b) decrease in water pressure as the quality of the service decreases in general b) Outages for moderate periods of time as the general infrastructure fails, and there’s little manpower and resources to get it back up fast enough. This may be anything from a couple days to a couple weeks before the water is up again.
Take care,

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FerFAL

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I live in the Mohave desert in the Southwest US in a large city. I have 90 gallons of treated potable water in the house, and 50 gallons via the hot water heater, as a part of short term supply - 140 gallons total for 2 people and 3 dogs. I also have extra 30 and 55 gal drums for storage and transfer and pump systems. A 14,500 gallon pool with a RO system is stage 2 with Katydyn systems, MIOX pen, UV pen, calcium hypochlorite, activated charcoal filters and other provisions allow me an extended period without potable water from the utility. However, living in a city in a desert, if the water supply is cut for too long, the only option is to leave and travel about 1,000 miles to an area where water isn't such a problem. We simply cannot survive here without the infrastructure to deliver water via the municipal utility. Plus, I worked for a local utility and have extensive, deep knowledge of our infrastructure capabilities and limitations.

Likewise, I have substantial food supplies, but cannot grow enough to be self sufficient because of our extreme weather. I'm taking classes and working on developing a greenhouse to learn what is and isn't possible. Experts can grow quite a lot of food but that's with lots of experience and learning by real life mistakes. Again, a long term interruption in the delivery of food to this city would require a move of at least 1,000 miles to a location that is more self sufficient.

That said, because I can't be as resilient as I'd like, I've compensated for these shortcomings with PM's, guns, and ammo - the new currency of a post collapse society.

Please keep up the good work in pointing out practical steps we can take to be more resilient for the times ahead.

I am continually amazed at those who have a clue and are getting ready, versus the vast majority who literally don't have 2 days of food on the shelf, or water, or some cash, or self defense provisions.