When I was a kid I remember being bored to death in school when they were teaching us all about water, in fact the only thing I figured water was good for was a great water balloon fight. The only thing that stuck in my head was that water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The thing I really should’ve paid attention to was the fact that water is highly needed to promote good health. The other thing was liquid measurements…
I've never needed this information and so didn't know it off the top of my head. Here's some basic conversions:
Liquid Measurements
16 ounces = 1 Pint
32 ounces = 1 Quart
128 ounces = 1 Gallon
2 Pints = 1 Quart
4 Quarts = 1 Gallon
8 Gallons = 1 Bushel
1 Cup = 8 Ounces
1 Pint = 16 Ounces
1 Quart = 32 Ounces
1 Gallon = 128 Ounces
1 Gallon = 3.785 Liters
1 Liter = 0.264 Gallon
1 Liter = 1.0567 Quarts
Why We Need Water
Our bodies are estimated to be about 60 to 70% water. Blood is mostly water, and our muscles, lungs, and brain all contain water. We need to drink water because water is needed to transport oxygen to our cells, provides the “river” for all the nutrients to travel to our organs, removes waste, regulates our body temperature and protects our joints and organs.
How much water do we need?
A lot of sources claim you should drink 8-10 glasses of water a day (64-80 ounces), and many people in the health industry I’ve asked about this has no idea where this formula came from. They gave me this suggestion though for healthy level of water:
Take your body weight in pounds and divide that number in half. That gives you the number of ounces of water per day that you need to drink. For example, if you weigh 280 pounds, you should drink at least 140 ounces of water per day (more than a gallon). If you exercise you should drink another 8 ounce glass of water for every 20 minutes you are working out. If you live in a dry warm climate, you should add another 16 ounces per day.
As you can see, your daily need for water can add up pretty quickly.
But what do you need in an emergency situation to survive? No one wanted to give me a solid answer, so I looked it up on the net… And the consensus is 2 Quarts (64 ounces) for drinking (minimum!).
So ideally, you should use the formula above and think about what you may be doing in the event of an emergency and plan for that. Make sure to plan ahead, don’t just assume since you have small kids they won’t need as much. Sometimes they may need MORE than you do. For example my daughter Angel weighs 54 pounds so we’ll take that and divide in half (27 ounces). Now let’s look at her activity level. She runs constantly and plays hard for at least 3 hours a day 24 ounces per hour gives us another 72 ounces, and here
I have a friend named Vince who weighs 160 lbs (80 ounces base) and he’s very lazy and I don’t expect him to Rambo up and get busy so the only addition to him would be 16 ounces for the heat. 96 ounces. So you can see Angel requires more then Vince…
My other daughter Maile weighs 42 lbs so her base is 21 ounces. Her activity level is much less than Angel’s. She plays hard on average 1 hour a day (24 ounces) and again we’ll add in the heat of summer just to be safe. So her amount is 61 ounces. Like Vince, much less than Angel’s.
Now we’ll examine my needs… At the time of this writing I am 280 lbs, so need 140 ounces. Currently I sit in front of a machine on a regular basis, but have a distinct feeling I may be more physically active in emergency situations so to play it safe will say an hour of activity (24 ounces) and will add in the summer heat (16 ounces) to bring me to a daily water requirement of 180 ounces a day (1.5 gallons a day) WOW!!! But I know for a fact I don’t nearly drink that amount of liquid on a given day, but I’ll tell you the main reason these calculations are valuable. It is better to have MORE then you need, then LESS!!!
So if you use the formula for your entire family it’ll give you the daily water amount needed, or you could go with the bare minimum of 64 ounces a day per person. I have a family of five which means 320 ounces (2.5 gallons) a day. So if I’m planning on having enough drinking water for three days I’ll need to store 7.5 gallons. A week would require 17.5 gallons. This makes me a bit uncomfortable, so let’s figure the actual “healthy” amount.
My son, my wife, my two daughters, and I require 533 ounces a day (4.16 gallons a day). And a full week would require 29.15 gallons.
When we compare we see a difference of 11.65 gallons. So if for some reason a week wasn’t enough and we actually rationed out the water to the minimum of 64 ounces a day we’d actually have enough drinking water to last us for an additional 4 days. Those extra days may mean the difference between life and death.
So far we’ve just covered what you need to DRINK. We haven’t covered the other aspects of water which we take for granted. We use it to wash ourselves, brush our teeth, and clean our cloths and dishes. So keep that in mind. Add another 2 liters for misc cleaning and hygiene needs.
So let’s say you store water and things don’t get better and you need more water but for whatever reason can’t leave your house. Don’t panic because there is usually hidden water in your house.
Hidden Water Sources in Your Home
If you own or rent a home and need more water you can use water in your hot-water tank, in your plumbing and in ice cubes. As a last resort, you can use water in the reservoir tank of your toilet (not the bowl), but purify it first (I’m getting to that).
WATER BEDS: Water beds can hold up to 400 gallons, but some water beds contain toxic chemicals that are not fully removed by many purifiers. If you designate a water bed in your home as an emergency resource, drain it yearly and refill it with fresh water containing two ounces of bleach per 120 gallons.
WATER IN PIPES: To use the water in your pipes, let air into the plumbing by turning on the highest faucet in your house and draining the water from the lowest one. To use the water in your hot-water tank, be sure the electricity or gas is off, and open the drain at the bottom of the tank. Start the water flowing by turning off the water intake valve and turning on a hot-water faucet. Do not turn on the gas or electricity when the tank is empty. Do you know the location of your incoming water valve? You'll need to shut if off to stop contaminated water from entering your home.
OUTDOOR WATER: Emergency Outdoor Water Sources If you need to seek water outside your home, you can use these sources. But purify the water before drinking it. Rainwater, Streams, rivers and other moving bodies of water, Ponds and lakes, Natural springs Avoid water with floating material, an odor or dark color. Use saltwater only if you distill it first (Seriously, I’m getting there…).
HOW TO PURIFY WATER
In addition to having a bad odor and taste, contaminated water can contain microorganisms that cause diseases such as dysentery, cholera, typhoid and hepatitis. It is vital that you purify all suspect water before using it for drinking, cleaning or food preparation.
Before we begin, let me just state for the record that there is no perfect way to purify water. There are many ways to help prevent contaminates and the best solution is usually a combination of methods. Before you begin, let any suspended particles settle to the bottom, or strain them through layers of paper towel or clean cloth. The following procedures will kill microbes but will not remove other contaminants such as heavy metals, or salts.
- Boiling is the safest method of purifying water. Bring water to a rolling boil for 10 minutes, keeping in mind that some water will evaporate. Let the water cool before drinking. Boiled water will taste better if you put oxygen back into it by pouring it back and forth between two containers. This will also improve the taste of stored water.
- Chlorination uses liquid chlorine bleach to kill microorganisms. Add three drops of bleach per quart of water (five drops if the water is cloudy), stir and let stand for 30 minutes. If the water does not taste and smell of chlorine at that point, add another dose and let stand another 15 minutes. If you do not have a dropper, use a spoon and a square-ended strip of paper or thin cloth about 1/4 inch by 2 inches. Put the strip in the spoon with an end hanging down about 1/2 inch below the scoop of the spoon. Place bleach in the spoon and carefully tip it. Drops the size of those from a medicine dropper will drip off the end of the strip.
| Treating Water with a 5-6 Percent Liquid Chlorine Bleach Solution | ||
| Volume of Water to be Treated | Treating Clear Water: Bleach Solution to Add | Treating Cloudy, Very Cold, or Surface Water: Bleach Solution to Add |
| 1 quart/1 liter | 3 drops | 5 drops |
| 1/2 gallon/2 quarts/2 liters | 5 drops | 10 drops or 1/8 teaspoon |
| 1 gallon | 10 drops or 1/8 teaspoon | 20 drops or 1/4 teaspoon |
| 5 gallons | 50 drops or 2.5 milliliters or 1/2 teaspoon | 5 milliliters or 1 teaspoon |
| 10 gallons | 5 milliliters or 1 teaspoon | 10 milliliters or 2 teaspoon |
- Purification tablets release chlorine or iodine. In our EEK’s we have 50 tablets for just such a use. Follow the package directions. Usually one tablet is enough for one quart of water. Double the dose for cloudy water.
More Rigorous Purification Methods
While the three methods described above will remove only microbes from water, the following two purification methods will remove other contaminants. Distillation will remove microbes, heavy metals, salts, most other chemicals, and radioactive dust and dirt, called radioactive fallout. Filtering will also remove radioactive fallout. (Water itself cannot become radioactive, but it can be contaminated by radioactive fallout. It is unsafe to drink water that contains radioactive fallout.)
Distillation involves boiling water and then collecting the vapor that condenses back to water. The condensed vapor will not include salt and other impurities. To distill, fill a pot halfway with water. Tie a cup to the handle on the pot's lid so that the cup will hang right-side-up when the lid is upside-down (make sure the cup is not dangling into the water) and boil the water for 20 minutes. The water that drips from the lid into the cup is distilled.
To make fallout filters, punch holes in the bottom of a large bucket, and put a layer of gravel in the bucket about 1-1/2 inches high. Cover the gravel with a towel cut in a circle slightly larger than the bucket. Cover soil with a towel, place the filter over a large container, and pour contaminated water through. Then, disinfect the filtered water using one of the methods described above. Change the soil in your filter after every 50 quarts of water.
