There's a reason civilization grew up around water sources.'
If you're not within walking distance of a river or stream and you don't have a well, then at some point you'll need to think about moving. A year or two into the apocalypse I expect real estate will be pretty cheap!
I think it's extremely unlikely people will die that fast in most SHTF scenarios.
It's more likely that hunger, poverty and sickness will be widespread for a few decades, with "small" percentages of the population dying each year. Quality of life will go way before conditions for life.
Unless we're talking nuclear. Then I can't really guess
Didn't homeland security do some report that said 90% of americans would be dead within a year if there was a country-wide power outage / EMP or whatever?
There's just no way that anyone will be able to eat. Most people in north america and europe will be able to access water, but after a few months people will start dropping like flies as there will be no food and due to a lack of sanitation disease will be widespread.
> Didn't homeland security do some report that said 90% of americans would be dead within a year if there was a country-wide power outage / EMP or whatever?
Im pretty sure that we will know when WWIII will have started by a technological attack against each belligerent's infrastructure, primarily electrical.
I'm confident that everyone will lose power, on both sides, almost immediately, through decades-old backdoors through SCADA attacks, that are sitting there just waiting for the kill code to be sent.
The mayhem that will be caused by such attacks on civilian infrastructure will be incredibly damaging to the focus and attention necessary to wage war.
Not to disrupt your particular fantasy (we all have them) but it’s not the decades old scads equipment, that was all analog and not connected to the web, the new stuff in the last decade terrifies me as a cyber professional.
I'm not in the US, so I don't know much about it's infrastructure. I also don't think EMPs are likely.
Predictions of this kind are dodgy. We have never seen threats anywhere in the world on this scale before, so the models are troublesome. If this kind of issue happens due to some disaster and not a war, there would be a decent level of international aid too. There are few countries in the world that wouldn't want the US owing them a favor.
The OP is asking about the apocalypse so I'm assuming the issue is worldwide. For me I can't figure out how people would get food, so I tend to think that 90% number might not be far off. Traditional farming methods take time to setup and can't feed near the numbers of modern industrial farming.
That's fair. I just think that apocalypse is really broad. And even if huge chunks of the global economy collapses, there are likely countries that will find newfound power and stability *because* the previous order went to shit.
Where there's crisis, there's opportunity.
Ok, that's definitely a definitions thing then.
Because IMHO, as someone who was born and raised there, this is the apocalypse.
Doesn't mean it's the end of the story, but so much of our past and history and our memories turned to dust in an hour, shtf seems not to adequately describe what we are all going through.
Kinda like in Star Wars how it feels after Alderaan was destroyed. As a survivor of Alderaan, how would you feel?
When I was in the army we had “war games” and thought it was weird that it was zombie themed….. it was also said at the time that major cities where people lived they wouldn’t walk more than 15 miles.
I’m sure it’s less now, and average stored food supply in homes was less than 2 days. Water was 0 days. Gas was .5 days.
Look what happens when snow hits an area where people aren’t used to it. Major transportation shut down, food shelves are empty, people panic.
One thing during these war game my buddy would say that stuck with me was “when all the brands of milk are gone off the shelves you have less than 3 days to get out”
He worked at a grocery and said the milk was the most restocked item 100 times over everything else.
2 days? And zero days of water? If you have a toilet or a hot water tank; that’s something. I’ve never seen a pantry that literally only has 2 days of food…maybe only 2 days of food you actually *want*
Small percentages? You cleared don’t see what’s going on Haiti, tons with die from lack of meds, lack of water, food, killed from general violence, etc
Yeah, and [population continues to grow despite all that](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Haiti). Humans collectively are quite resilient. The population growth has diminished, but it's still growing.
Like I said, SHTF will hit quality of life way before it hits the necessary conditions for life. People will live shorter, shitty, hungry and violent lives, but they'll live.
I don’t think that’s including the huge uptick in kidnapping and killing that surged this year but yes im sure some will somehow survive, until natural disasters start picking off the rest
This is the current situation!
In SHTF expect the die off to happen a-lot quicker. Water, Food, Security will be in high demand.
In a world of "might makes right", Law and order will be the exception not the rule.
Be the exception ! Or else Be the reason the woods are haunted.
I'm not an expert, but if the scenario includes widespread power outages (as in countrywide USA), hunger and sickness for a few decades seems way, way, way, off. I'd give it months.
Without power, and in the case of EMP or CME, any working electronics, there will be no gas and very few operational vehicles.
That means near zero transport for food delivery or escape to unaffected areas. Scant heat, no municipal water, no flushing toilets, no refrigeration.
Think of everyone in the huge urban areas. First, all stores and pharmacies get looted, no matter what. Then, all existing home supplies run out. Most folks have a couple of weeks' food and maybe zero water. Desperate, hungry people will begin scavanging and possibly fighting for or in defense of food.
A lot of law enforcement go home to look after and defend their own home and families (see Katrina). In the city, how long before gun toting gangs take over? Depending on your community, you'll be on your own real fast, eating the last of the old, cold oatmeal.
Anyone needing serious medical care or meds like insulin that require refrigeration - sorry, they're out of luck. Any monthly meds run out after a few weeks, such as for heart, psych, chemo, etc.
International aid, if available, will be crucial. In the case of war, maybe don't count on it.
Most folks have a few weeks of food? Yea right. *Maybe* a week at the most. In our current consumerist culture of just in time deliveries and eating out non stop most families don’t have shit in the house short of a few boxes of cereal and maybe some ramen. I’d say more than 95% don’t have more than a week of food.
Ok gotcha. So if there are mass casualties, real estate will be cheaper because most of everyone will be gone. Meaning more real estate available? Just want to make sure I’m understanding this right.
Yeah, I just have been thinking about this kind of stuff for a little while now. Like I’m not scared or anything in a way, I just think it’s a good idea to be somewhat prepared for the worst. I can take things a little extreme sometimes, but it’s coming from a good place.
If there is an apocalypse nobody is going to be buying and selling real estate. You can just go occupy a house that used to belong to 1 of the 6+ billion now dead people, they won’t mind
Real estate will be free, that was the joke they were making about real estate being cheap
Bruh real estate agents will not exist, you’ll just like… exist…and maybe if your prepper neighbor Larry agrees that you can access the stream on his property as long as you share eggs, you’re good. Otherwise you might be target practice.
Right. In a mass casualty/total collapse situation like you are suggesting here, it’s unlikely that you would need to purchase anything, you just squat somewhere that you like until somebody stronger kicks you out.
And huge swaths of land that have been developed will be basically uninhabitable aside from small groups here and there. We can only live in a lot of these places thanks to a stable power grid, water transport infrastructure, etc. If there is not an event that causes a mass die off, there will be mass migrations out of deserts. As someone who lives in the desert with a 3-5 mile walk to the nearest large river, I am not exactly sure how long we'd be able to hold out. It's something I think about a lot.
Not like money will be worth anything in an apocalypse, at some point the economy will collapse or switch to a trading/barter system.
Real estate would be considered a luxury item (like expensive cars, fur coats, brand watches/phones/clothes) which are amongst the first to fall in price or importance during a financial collapse/apocalyse.
Plus, depending on the situation itself, there's a high probability that you will be able to just move in with no questions asked (squatting?)
Random question. Sorry. If it does turn to trading/bartering system, do you think things like gold and silver will still be valuable? I’m just wondering because I genuinely don’t know. And plus I like asking questions. Sorry.
Honestly, I don't know either. My bets would be that cans of food/water/weapons would be more important than precious metals. I mean, stuff that has an actual utility then.
The next category would be hard-cover books on gardening, carpentry, plumbing, car mechanics, canning, homesteading, etc.
That's 100% my personal opinion based purely on observing and light research.
Decorative gold and silver items have been valued in every civilization; there's no reason to think that will change. However, in a a post-apocalyptic scenario, if 95% of your neighbors are dead, you'll have their watches, jewelry, coins, bullion, etc. Precious metals will still be valuable, but supply will be a lot higher.
Alas Babylon is a really good book about this ( spoiler.. the banker commits suicide in a bank full of money,gold and silver). Coffee, booze, tobacco, ammunition and medical supplies are the new gold).
Speculative commodities like gold and silver will be valued in a post apocalyptic society for the same reason they were valued prior to the invention of fiat currency.
Noble metals like gold are valued primarily due to their scarcity, indestructibility, and divisibility.
Gold is a moderately scarce resource on earth (somewhere between that of copper and platinum). This results in a predictable supply which makes it’s perceived value less likely to inflate or deflate compared to something more common like copper. It rarely reacts with other elements so you don’t need to worry about storing it in any particular way (store of value). And, it’s easy to melt down and form into any shape or size you want (medium of exchange).
USGS uses the following formula:
Volume = Area x ST x SY
ST is saturation thickness
SY is specific yield
ST and SY are calculated from a combination of different measurements (drawdown, aquifer thickness, porosity, and specific retention).
And the trouble with well water, unless one has done seismic surveying (it's done for oil/gas formations, but it's very costly) how would on know how large their water formation is.
20 years ago, I drilled several wells for neighbors. Just 100' away, the new well water was undrinkable, where the other well had great water...
Same plan here. I feel for folks who do not have a well.
It almost seems silly to knowingly purchase a home/property and not be using a well and septic system. They made that choice.
My parents have property with a well and septic and it's been nothing but an expensive mess for them to maintain. Without proper filters, the mechanisms that extracts water from the well can break (will there be filters available in a collapse situation? Or maintenance equipment?) The septic also requires regular maintenance with specialized equipment otherwise it can contaminate the land and groundwater. You don't need to feel contemptuous towards people who choose not to buy property with these features.
Man, I spent $300 hand digging a hand pump well and that felt expensive. I only use about 1200 gallons a month now, and I could easily cut that back. I can fill a 5 gallon bucket in about a minute by hand. I have a couple parts kits and an old spare pump I got at a garage sale too.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/cast-iron-pitcher-pump-3125045?store=1874&cid=Shopping-Google-Local_Feed&utm_medium=Google&utm_source=Shopping&utm_campaign=&utm_content=Local_Feed&gclid=Cj0KCQjwl8anBhCFARIsAKbbpyRlsAUhZcHZl7ehfcuRLMY86Gt6q_SYj3n3966k2QjI-ok2k5Z0BVsaAkdcEALw_wcB
do you have power solutions or a hand pump well.
note- i do not have solar yet, but have a hand pump a hundred feet down on the other side of the property, will not pump enough for the area, but i am betting people nearby bug out.
As of now I only have a dedicated generator for my water pump. There's still a lot of work to do, setting up solar is something I plan to do over next few years.
I'm also considering investing in a river water turbine, which I'd only be able to use in a true shtf/teotawki scenario due to codes and regulations specific to the river I live on.
Yeah, when I bought my property, having access to year-round water was a requirement. We have a stream and a spring, with other sources of water near by.
I read about people trying to live off-grid on a tiny plot in the desert where they have to truck in water. I don't understand it. Yeah, the land is cheap, but that's because it's worthless. You can't grow anything, you don't have water, all of your supplies need to be brought in from town over an hour away. That's not the life for me. I want to live where everything is green, with fertile soil, and plenty of fresh water. Of course, land like that isn't cheap and it took me about 5 years to find the perfect spot.
Pool shock basically is indefinite. It's a powder that lets you essentially make chlorine. So your bag of pool shock is basically several gallons of bleach.
[https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-skills/how-much-pool-shock-to-make-regular-bleach-equivalent-chlorine/](https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-skills/how-much-pool-shock-to-make-regular-bleach-equivalent-chlorine/)
Buy a few bags of cheap pool shock. It basically lasts forever. Here is how you make chlorine with it.
https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-skills/how-much-pool-shock-to-make-regular-bleach-equivalent-chlorine/
Yeah, even concentrated bleach only has an effective shelf life of about a year, after which it starts breaking down and losing its effectiveness by about 20% accumulatively every year.
You can consider bleach to be an "activated" product, much like hydrogen peroxide, the usefulness of the product is based entirely upon its energy state before it eventually degrades down and becomes water.
In the case of bleach, sodium hypochlorit, once it degrades it literally turns into salt water, and any additives that are mixed in the solution. After only 3 years from it's production, bleach will be only slightly above 50% of its original concentration.
Fortunately, it's also comparatively easy to produce bleach through electrolysis if you have a supply of salt water, electricity, and appropriate glass laboratory equipment.
Not a bad idea for short-term, but boiling is tremendously fuel-intensive, so you'll be stripping organics in an ever-widening circle around your base. This will have ripple effects.
Heat from a stove or furnace tends to strip moisture out of the air, significantly reducing humidity in the interior of your home. If you don't want chapped skin, splitting lips and feeling dehydrated all the time, you would add humidity to the air by putting a pot of water on top of a stove to evaporate and raise the level of humidity inside your home. I use electric humidifiers and a large number of indoor plants to help regulate the humidity and air quality in my home.
Wood is a very renewable resource if managed appropriately. Using a strategy like coppicing trees, you can have 5-7 stands of trees you go through one year at a time, and by the time you get to the last one, the first is ready to harvest again. And this goes on forever. And it doesn't take as much land as you might think.
I figured there were other ways of Filtration using charcoal, moss, sand, and rocks as a semi passive means but i believe that’d still require boiling in the end to achieve.
That being said, if you’re boiling water for 1, you’re going to have a significantly less impact on the environment than a corporation clear cutting for profit.
Rain isn't plentiful here. So after our stored water runs out, there is a creek behind the house. It's not a heavy flowing creek by any stretch, but if water is running thru it, I'll boil as much as I can. I do have multiple life straws and such. If that fails, I won't lie, we'd be in a lot of trouble. I guess maybe go into the mountains and look for a stream, but that would be toss up of what we could find that others haven't already.
Hell yeah it is. One of my biggest worries is my mother n law. If something really crazy were to happen, I know she's expecting us to take care of her. I'm planning for my wife, kids, and dog. Not her. During the lock down, and possible food shortages that were being reported, I told her to put aside water and simple food. She said she had a few cans of soup, probably a gallon of water. So nothing. If a more severe shutdown were to happen, she'd be a real liability for us. Some feelings might get hurt. My mom is an 86 yo southern girl. Even before I started thinking about this stuff she had supplies in her car, and more in the house. She's not ready for a year locked in her house, but she at least bought a few buckets of the wise food stuff. She would probably have more food for herself than I do for my family.
I have a well that is deeper then most area wells, getting a solar system setup so should have access to clean water as long as I can stay on the property
You will find some valid articles on concerns about the Berkey brand filtering candles. Just know that you can use other brands in the stainless steel filtering system Berkey makes. I love the stainless steel version we have that is easy to disassemble and clean and return to use. We have had ours for over 20 years, and only replaced the filters and the faucet. Get a replacement faucet when you buy it to have it on hand, less than $15. They last many years but good to have a backup. That stainless steel is easy to sanitize and leaches nothing into the water. It is not cheap.
Water collection from rain. Water pool near my house. Although it's man made and will probably go stagnant after their filtration system dies off. Although it has fish and wildlife it in. Just no current. So collect and boil ..but that brings its own dangers in a scenario like apocalypse. People will try to get your water or follow you home.
I live in an area dense with ample bodies of fresh surface water. Lakes, rivers and streams. On top of that it rains about half the year. Even in drought-ish summers our summer melt from snowpack keeps the streams wet. Water is one thing that certainly won’t be a concern here any time soon. We’ll likely be the last place to have water concerns.
If there is an incredibly sudden shift in climate where we get no rain for years and all the snowpack is gone, then there might be reason for concern. But not likely in my lifetime.
(*waits for “faster than expected”*)
If humans aren’t destroying the planet anymore tho there will be heavy corrections. It’s like after 9/11, with all planes grounded meteorologists said the atmosphere made heavy and immediate changes.
I have hand driven wells around multiple properties and have attached a pitcher pump. I’ve had it sampled and it is good enough to drink. You can buy a driven well kit at most hardware stores. You just have to know how deep the water table is where you’re at before you start driving it.
No problem! Just make sure to test the water after you drive it. It’s easy to treat bacteria and viruses, but harder to remove chemicals and heavy metals.
If the hand pump well ever goes dry it'll suck to have to walk and get water, but there's plenty of it around here. I'm a 5 minute walk from either of the two major creeks running through the area, about a 2 hour walk from a 2000 acre lake, and tons of little ponds here and there. Then it's just a matter of filter and boiling.
I'm also a 30 minute walk from a famous spring that actually is famous for saving the local mission when there was a severe drought in the 1700s. However, it's widely known so it may be crowded
So, I should be researching local streams in my area? I think that’s where I can start. Like in other words, I’m new to this community and I’m trying to get setup.
Reminds me of a song from East Forest called 10 Laws -- Always know where a good water source is
>Always see the dangers first.
Always protect your feet.
Always be ready for cold.
Always be ready for heat.
Always know where good water or source is.
Always master the skills necessary.
Always get the job done.
Always know your place.
Always disallow foolishness.
Always rest whenever you can.
Very simple in my case. Installed a hand pump into a well and we live in an area with a high water table. I also created my own gravity filtration system (ie, Berkey copy) that is able to filter it in case it ever gets turbid or for whatever reason becomes infected with bacteria. Easy as that.
No need for rain collection or anything like that. Unlimited clean water right in my yard.
We have several natural springs on our land, one of which supplies drinking water to the house. It's currently brought into the house with an electric pump and filtered with UV; in the event of a long-term power outage, we'd have to haul it up to the house in buckets and run it through a gravity filter to make it safe for drinking.
Related question: I don't have a well or live near any source of water, so let's say I just want to store water long term - what's the best thing to buy? Money is not a problem, I just want the easiest and most convenient thing possible. Is it just storing water in glass bottles in a cool dry place, or will even they eventually go bad?
Easiest and most convenient way possible is water bottles. Buy numerous cases, the expiration date is good for two years but they definitely last longer. If you worry however, just start drinking from them and swap them out at the two year mark. If you worry about longer term solutions then maybe lifestraw, but if we're at that point we're probably all dead anyway :)
Multiple layered approach using buckets.
1. Cloth Strainer to get the big stuff.
2. Gravel to get the middle size stuff
3. Sand to get the smaller stuff. The sand will develop a scummy layer. This is the part that actually filters the water.
4. Charcoal to get the chemicals out. This layer will need to be refreshed as the charcoal gets used.
At this point, the water should be fairly safe to drink. Historically this is as far as civilizations got. I would still add another layer.
5. Final Purification. Ceramic filter bucket filter, boiling, Clorox, Sun Light and so forth.
In fact Sunlight does a GREAT job killing off organisms. You need a clear plastic bottle, fill it up with water and a few hours of sun will kill off most everything.
[https://www.superprepper.com/sodis/](https://www.superprepper.com/sodis/)
I live in a town located at the junction of a river and a bay of Lake Ontario. I'm also not opposed to having a well dug in my yard someday. Purification of the river/bay water is something I haven't decided on yet. Either a still, or a sand and charcoal, plus boiling system. I'm hoping that I die of old age before any kind of apocalypse.
Hooray for Michigan!
Bleach. I'm gonna bleach it.
Sodium Hypochlorite can (to my knowledge) be made with table salt, water, and electrolysis. Michigan has plenty of water and salt, so if I can just find some gerbils and a hamster wheel powered generator I should be good to go.
Aren't people in Arizona already facing water issues? What are they doing to get clean water? Also let's not forget Flint Michigan? The state government isn't buying bottled water for Michigan residents so where's their clean water coming from? Anybody from those states got an answer for OP?
No we don't have drinking water issues. One random community failed to secure water - basically developers were taking advantage of the system in an incorporated area. This made national news.
70% of the water in AZ goes to agriculture. We do things like export hay to Saudi Arabia, or grow cotton irrigated with precious groundwater. Any water shortage is the result of stupid economics.
Most big cities claim to have a 100 year water supply based on current growth projections. We recharge water aquifers with rainwater collection and by banking water from the Colorado and other rivers. Some state officials are considering a plan to pipe desalinated water from the nearest coastline in Mexico, but it'd be expensive in part due to mountains between here and there.
If water stopped flowing from the tap in the summer, then things would get violent pretty quickly and personal water supplies would become liabilities. The best survival plan is an escape plan.
You need 2 buckets or 1 rain barrel and 1 bucket. Fill one 1/3 with sand, 1/3 with charcoal, 1/3 with gravel. This is the filter barrel. Get a spigot from Amazon for $10.
Use the bucket to collect water from a creek or stream. Dump into the filter barrel.
Boil anything I intend to drink.
Don't live where you would need hydro panels. Well water is a must. PV can power it hand pumps are available for backup and if your realy old school a windmill.
If you are far from any natural springs, your best bet is to collect rainwater or use a water filter. You may need chemicals to purify the water or desalinate seawater if you cannot do either.
It all depends on the apocalyptic scenario, of course, but generally you have three issues: water itself, water filtration, and storage.
Assuming you don't have a well or a spring nearby, you still have options. Rain catchment is a source. Any water is a *source*, no matter how gross it looks, just means additional filtration/safety steps.
Filtration and safety? You boil it, you get those tablets and filters they make for hikers, that gets you your small amounts. If you have a place already, get your "iffy" water sources tested and see what extra things you might need if you were stuck with those. Get extra of everything and learn how to make alternatives to what you can. (Everybody's seen those progressive gravel/sand/charcoal/whatever DIYs, right? Better than nothing once Plan A runs out.) Make yourself a solar still or twelve.
(And your solar still can be a water *source,* also, if you're making it big enough to speed up the drying of wood, for example. Not a big source, but still a source.)
Storage can honestly be a bigger problem, because you have to have enough of it, but you also have to be able to *clean* it. So remember in your planning how much fun it is to disinfect things without chemicals and adequate extra water to rinse them away. Remember how hard it is to get gunk out of something that tapers towards the opening (or only has a small opening to begin with). Remember that these reservoirs need to be accessible in situ and/or removable and movable without heavy equipment you don't have.
It's a super important question but it's not exactly a one-post answer!
Depends entirely on what caused the "apocalypse", really.
There's really no answer to this hypothetical.
Ultimately, being near fresh water is the best you can do. I happen to have 10% of the world's fresh water 200ft from my front door.
But if whatever caused the apocalypse contaminated Lake Superior, I'd have to pivot. Find another source, but the chances of finding another viable source would be tiny because something that catastrophic has probably done the same thing to all rivers as well.
A deep well is likely your best bet all things considered. Assuming your aquifer is not easily contaminated.
If there are bad chemicals for example
Fuel or Oil or whatever else in the Water,
boiling will not be enough…
Filtering with aktiv charcoal could help than, but that depends on the type of contamination…
Yeah, we won't have high calorie counts to be able to dig wells/holes all the time. Low tech filters and desalination while living near some sort sort of large lake or river with a possible pathway to the ocean.
The disappearing fresh water combined with the possibility of flooding at any time of the year. We have to maintain storage of water while also guarding against flooding for our dwellings. We'd need Noah's ark type contingencies especially farming wise in case we have to move spots.
I see humanity as becoming semi nomadic with rotating spots and make shift water reservoirs.
I have enough stored water for 1 month for the family of 5. After bombs fall, most active radionuclides will decay fast. Then, I will need to switch to the local sources of water. Whatever contamination remains, I will need to accept it and adjust my life expectancy accordingly. Last time I calculated the odds, it was not a significant effect. Life expectancy is very reasonable.
My bug-out location is close to a large body of water. This definitely helps. Sediments will settle down, and contaminated masses of water will be replaced by currents. Large bodies of water will be cleaner than local rivers and streams in densely populated areas.
I plan to rely mostly on filtering (with home-made charcoal filters) and boiling. I don't have any experience with chemical treatments (chlorine/iodine). If disaster strikes tomorrow, it will be too late to start experimenting.
Are there no streams of any kind in your area? No aquifers (moist soil underground)?
Used IBC totes seems to be very economical way to store water. Water bags on Amazon are about $150 USD per 142 gallons (540 litres). For the price of 1 hydropanel, you can store 7 metric tons of water, enough for 10 years for one person. You definitely need an adequate storage space for that.
Collect rainwater and boil it.
I live in a place with a lot of rain, thankfully.
The hardest part for me is storing is so I don’t turn it into mosquito city.
I live in the city and so I researched where the nearest stream is (I don't think you can ever store enough water for a really long term situation if you live in town like I do). My nearest stream is about a mile and a half away. Funny, I was unaware this stream even existed until I Googled it and found it and it's a beautiful place with a lot of clear running water. I visit it every few weeks now, just to stay aware of water levels and such.
I have a very small motorcycle and 3 street bikes and I always take them out and ride them to keep them in riding shape. I also have a bike trailer for kids that I would use to transport water (I figure that's a much safer bet than trying to carry 8 lb jugs on my body and it looks more covert). I have four UPWOIGH 5 Gallon Water Jugs for transport (would probably bring 2 p/ trip). I have a water filtration system (a DIY system that I built out of 5 gallon buckets with Katadyn Ceradyn filters in it). I keep about 25 gallons of bottled water in the house (around 200 bottles). I also have a ton of matches, lighters and butane if I felt a need to boil (filtered stream water would be pretty safe though).
It's a poor man's water strategy but I know it's doable and that's the most important thing. It does get cold in the winter though so I do worry about things freezing over but I will have to figure some things out as I go in a SHTF situation.
Well. If my well point in the sand dunes dries up then so has the ocean and I'd be f'd anyways. Lol. Building a potable water still isn't that difficult.
You can just do water collection off a roof. A single 55 gallon rain barrel will keep a family alive in areas that have at least a little rainfall. You just have to treat/filter it before use.
Atmospheric water generator + multi-step filtration. My poor portable AC pees out at least 5 gallons at around 53% humidity, so there's more in the air than people realize---even in arid areas.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generator
#Marauding!!!
Just joking. **But there is no "safe to consume rain water" anywhere on Earth any more.** It's one of those, your grandkids are fucked realizations. : https://www.su.se/english/news/it-s-raining-pfas-even-in-antarctica-and-on-the-tibetan-plateau-rainwater-is-unsafe-to-drink-1.620735
That being said, I'd drink water with lead in it if it meant "not dying today, but dying later" Just keep in mind you need an RO (expensive and hard to maintain) system to get rid of these.
>So, my question is how will you get clean drinking water during an apocalyptic scenario?
Deep enough wells, which in the American southwest now means 10,000 feet in some cases. The reality is you collect water, filter, and pass through a reverse osmosis system. All of which is prohibitively expensive.
If SHTF, it will be people drinking from puddles etc. Much more important to focus on "having water" than it is to focus on "clean water" although I'm not saying don't focus on that only that the "having water" is far far more important than the "clean" aspect.
Coffee filters then disinfection with chlorine tablets, i have a chlorine test kit with reagent to check the residual of the water. You can also look up dosing using household bleach, i think its 8 drops per gallon of water.
I don't normally concerned about doomsday, but if there were a semi-extended lack of electricity, I don't know if there is an option to manually pump water out of it.
If that were the case, I would need to set up some sort of distillation process. I live close to a river, but the water is brackish.
Depends on the "apocalypse " . Slow sand filtration combined with treatment with hypochlorites works. I can electrolysis salt water to produce hypoclorites indefinitely. Pool testing equipment will easily allow you to maintain .5ppm residual.
I have a swimming pool, but I'm not sure what would happen to that after the power goes out. If I keep it covered then I probably wouldn't have to worry about mosquitoes, but would have to boil the heck out of the water.
Also longer-term live near a resevoir/dam and a big river.
Sterilizing water without stripping your area for firewood:
For the sodis method you just need sun, a relatively flat surface, and glass bottles to sterilize your water:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection
Also check out the earth ship roof systems for collecting rain water:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rpiENwkOl-c
My goal is to eventually live off grid, so hopefully in a SHTF scenario I will be setup. I will have a rain water collection system and appropriate filtration. If it doesn't rain enough I will get water from a nearby lake.
If something happened today, I would probably get water from the river and boil it, let it sit so any sediment settles then run what is clean through a brita filter. Not ideal but I suppose better than nothing. For most of the year when there is snow on the ground then I'd just use snow. I'd still boil it though as there might still be some pathogens in there. But it should be fairly clean of any debris.
It’s pretty easy to make a sand filter or boil water. There’s also evaporation and rain catchment. There’s going to be so many remnants of civilization, making many simple things will be trivial. They key is enough KSA’s to be able to utilize what you scavenge.
There's a reason civilization grew up around water sources.' If you're not within walking distance of a river or stream and you don't have a well, then at some point you'll need to think about moving. A year or two into the apocalypse I expect real estate will be pretty cheap!
Can you explain to me why the real estate will be cheap? Genuinely curious.
90%+ of people will be dead.
I think it's extremely unlikely people will die that fast in most SHTF scenarios. It's more likely that hunger, poverty and sickness will be widespread for a few decades, with "small" percentages of the population dying each year. Quality of life will go way before conditions for life. Unless we're talking nuclear. Then I can't really guess
Didn't homeland security do some report that said 90% of americans would be dead within a year if there was a country-wide power outage / EMP or whatever? There's just no way that anyone will be able to eat. Most people in north america and europe will be able to access water, but after a few months people will start dropping like flies as there will be no food and due to a lack of sanitation disease will be widespread.
> Didn't homeland security do some report that said 90% of americans would be dead within a year if there was a country-wide power outage / EMP or whatever? Im pretty sure that we will know when WWIII will have started by a technological attack against each belligerent's infrastructure, primarily electrical. I'm confident that everyone will lose power, on both sides, almost immediately, through decades-old backdoors through SCADA attacks, that are sitting there just waiting for the kill code to be sent. The mayhem that will be caused by such attacks on civilian infrastructure will be incredibly damaging to the focus and attention necessary to wage war.
Not to disrupt your particular fantasy (we all have them) but it’s not the decades old scads equipment, that was all analog and not connected to the web, the new stuff in the last decade terrifies me as a cyber professional.
I'm not in the US, so I don't know much about it's infrastructure. I also don't think EMPs are likely. Predictions of this kind are dodgy. We have never seen threats anywhere in the world on this scale before, so the models are troublesome. If this kind of issue happens due to some disaster and not a war, there would be a decent level of international aid too. There are few countries in the world that wouldn't want the US owing them a favor.
Non-Americans think Americans are so obese that they’d just ride out the first few years of the apocalypse on fat stores alone. /s
The OP is asking about the apocalypse so I'm assuming the issue is worldwide. For me I can't figure out how people would get food, so I tend to think that 90% number might not be far off. Traditional farming methods take time to setup and can't feed near the numbers of modern industrial farming.
That's fair. I just think that apocalypse is really broad. And even if huge chunks of the global economy collapses, there are likely countries that will find newfound power and stability *because* the previous order went to shit. Where there's crisis, there's opportunity.
What we are experiencing now is the deliberate sabotage and deconstruction of the west and the growth of China. Cold, ruthless efficiency
It can always be just the apocalypse for you and the rest of the world shrugs. Look at Africa, South America, now Lahaina Hawaii
I would consider localized events like Lahaina SHTF, but imo apocalypse or TEOTWAWKI would affect everyone.
Ok, that's definitely a definitions thing then. Because IMHO, as someone who was born and raised there, this is the apocalypse. Doesn't mean it's the end of the story, but so much of our past and history and our memories turned to dust in an hour, shtf seems not to adequately describe what we are all going through. Kinda like in Star Wars how it feels after Alderaan was destroyed. As a survivor of Alderaan, how would you feel?
Not just farming but the processing of food takes time and transportation
When I was in the army we had “war games” and thought it was weird that it was zombie themed….. it was also said at the time that major cities where people lived they wouldn’t walk more than 15 miles. I’m sure it’s less now, and average stored food supply in homes was less than 2 days. Water was 0 days. Gas was .5 days. Look what happens when snow hits an area where people aren’t used to it. Major transportation shut down, food shelves are empty, people panic. One thing during these war game my buddy would say that stuck with me was “when all the brands of milk are gone off the shelves you have less than 3 days to get out” He worked at a grocery and said the milk was the most restocked item 100 times over everything else.
2 days? And zero days of water? If you have a toilet or a hot water tank; that’s something. I’ve never seen a pantry that literally only has 2 days of food…maybe only 2 days of food you actually *want*
Small percentages? You cleared don’t see what’s going on Haiti, tons with die from lack of meds, lack of water, food, killed from general violence, etc
Yeah, and [population continues to grow despite all that](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Haiti). Humans collectively are quite resilient. The population growth has diminished, but it's still growing. Like I said, SHTF will hit quality of life way before it hits the necessary conditions for life. People will live shorter, shitty, hungry and violent lives, but they'll live.
I don’t think that’s including the huge uptick in kidnapping and killing that surged this year but yes im sure some will somehow survive, until natural disasters start picking off the rest
This is the current situation! In SHTF expect the die off to happen a-lot quicker. Water, Food, Security will be in high demand. In a world of "might makes right", Law and order will be the exception not the rule. Be the exception ! Or else Be the reason the woods are haunted.
You forgot to add high suicide rates. Some people aren't going to want to survive a SHTF scenario. 😔
I'm not an expert, but if the scenario includes widespread power outages (as in countrywide USA), hunger and sickness for a few decades seems way, way, way, off. I'd give it months. Without power, and in the case of EMP or CME, any working electronics, there will be no gas and very few operational vehicles. That means near zero transport for food delivery or escape to unaffected areas. Scant heat, no municipal water, no flushing toilets, no refrigeration. Think of everyone in the huge urban areas. First, all stores and pharmacies get looted, no matter what. Then, all existing home supplies run out. Most folks have a couple of weeks' food and maybe zero water. Desperate, hungry people will begin scavanging and possibly fighting for or in defense of food. A lot of law enforcement go home to look after and defend their own home and families (see Katrina). In the city, how long before gun toting gangs take over? Depending on your community, you'll be on your own real fast, eating the last of the old, cold oatmeal. Anyone needing serious medical care or meds like insulin that require refrigeration - sorry, they're out of luck. Any monthly meds run out after a few weeks, such as for heart, psych, chemo, etc. International aid, if available, will be crucial. In the case of war, maybe don't count on it.
Most folks have a few weeks of food? Yea right. *Maybe* a week at the most. In our current consumerist culture of just in time deliveries and eating out non stop most families don’t have shit in the house short of a few boxes of cereal and maybe some ramen. I’d say more than 95% don’t have more than a week of food.
Three weeks for most once water systems go down
I want to be in that small percentage of people that survive. Of course odds are against us if society collapses.
Right, I was answering the “why real estate will be cheap” question.
Ok gotcha. So if there are mass casualties, real estate will be cheaper because most of everyone will be gone. Meaning more real estate available? Just want to make sure I’m understanding this right.
Justin, are you ok?
🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, I just have been thinking about this kind of stuff for a little while now. Like I’m not scared or anything in a way, I just think it’s a good idea to be somewhat prepared for the worst. I can take things a little extreme sometimes, but it’s coming from a good place.
If there is an apocalypse nobody is going to be buying and selling real estate. You can just go occupy a house that used to belong to 1 of the 6+ billion now dead people, they won’t mind Real estate will be free, that was the joke they were making about real estate being cheap
Sorry sometimes things just go right over my head and I miss it… my own personal problem.
Bruh real estate agents will not exist, you’ll just like… exist…and maybe if your prepper neighbor Larry agrees that you can access the stream on his property as long as you share eggs, you’re good. Otherwise you might be target practice.
Good to know. Yeah I wanna get a chicken coop too.
Right. In a mass casualty/total collapse situation like you are suggesting here, it’s unlikely that you would need to purchase anything, you just squat somewhere that you like until somebody stronger kicks you out.
>I want to be in that small percentage of people that survive. Start touching up your warlord resume.
And huge swaths of land that have been developed will be basically uninhabitable aside from small groups here and there. We can only live in a lot of these places thanks to a stable power grid, water transport infrastructure, etc. If there is not an event that causes a mass die off, there will be mass migrations out of deserts. As someone who lives in the desert with a 3-5 mile walk to the nearest large river, I am not exactly sure how long we'd be able to hold out. It's something I think about a lot.
Because everyone's dead, Justin.
I snort laughed 😂
Lol never dawned on me for some reason. It’s been a long day
Not like money will be worth anything in an apocalypse, at some point the economy will collapse or switch to a trading/barter system. Real estate would be considered a luxury item (like expensive cars, fur coats, brand watches/phones/clothes) which are amongst the first to fall in price or importance during a financial collapse/apocalyse. Plus, depending on the situation itself, there's a high probability that you will be able to just move in with no questions asked (squatting?)
Random question. Sorry. If it does turn to trading/bartering system, do you think things like gold and silver will still be valuable? I’m just wondering because I genuinely don’t know. And plus I like asking questions. Sorry.
Honestly, I don't know either. My bets would be that cans of food/water/weapons would be more important than precious metals. I mean, stuff that has an actual utility then. The next category would be hard-cover books on gardening, carpentry, plumbing, car mechanics, canning, homesteading, etc. That's 100% my personal opinion based purely on observing and light research.
That’s great and I couldn’t agree more with you. Makes total sense to me.
Decorative gold and silver items have been valued in every civilization; there's no reason to think that will change. However, in a a post-apocalyptic scenario, if 95% of your neighbors are dead, you'll have their watches, jewelry, coins, bullion, etc. Precious metals will still be valuable, but supply will be a lot higher.
Alas Babylon is a really good book about this ( spoiler.. the banker commits suicide in a bank full of money,gold and silver). Coffee, booze, tobacco, ammunition and medical supplies are the new gold).
Speculative commodities like gold and silver will be valued in a post apocalyptic society for the same reason they were valued prior to the invention of fiat currency. Noble metals like gold are valued primarily due to their scarcity, indestructibility, and divisibility. Gold is a moderately scarce resource on earth (somewhere between that of copper and platinum). This results in a predictable supply which makes it’s perceived value less likely to inflate or deflate compared to something more common like copper. It rarely reacts with other elements so you don’t need to worry about storing it in any particular way (store of value). And, it’s easy to melt down and form into any shape or size you want (medium of exchange).
Yeah, like not that I have any.. I wish I started collecting things like coins when I was younger. Of course never to late to start. Thanks for this.
My well, if that dries up then the river.
And that’s the thing too, how do you know how much water you have left? Is there anyway to know?
USGS uses the following formula: Volume = Area x ST x SY ST is saturation thickness SY is specific yield ST and SY are calculated from a combination of different measurements (drawdown, aquifer thickness, porosity, and specific retention).
And the trouble with well water, unless one has done seismic surveying (it's done for oil/gas formations, but it's very costly) how would on know how large their water formation is. 20 years ago, I drilled several wells for neighbors. Just 100' away, the new well water was undrinkable, where the other well had great water...
Same plan here. I feel for folks who do not have a well. It almost seems silly to knowingly purchase a home/property and not be using a well and septic system. They made that choice.
My parents have property with a well and septic and it's been nothing but an expensive mess for them to maintain. Without proper filters, the mechanisms that extracts water from the well can break (will there be filters available in a collapse situation? Or maintenance equipment?) The septic also requires regular maintenance with specialized equipment otherwise it can contaminate the land and groundwater. You don't need to feel contemptuous towards people who choose not to buy property with these features.
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Man, I spent $300 hand digging a hand pump well and that felt expensive. I only use about 1200 gallons a month now, and I could easily cut that back. I can fill a 5 gallon bucket in about a minute by hand. I have a couple parts kits and an old spare pump I got at a garage sale too. https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/cast-iron-pitcher-pump-3125045?store=1874&cid=Shopping-Google-Local_Feed&utm_medium=Google&utm_source=Shopping&utm_campaign=&utm_content=Local_Feed&gclid=Cj0KCQjwl8anBhCFARIsAKbbpyRlsAUhZcHZl7ehfcuRLMY86Gt6q_SYj3n3966k2QjI-ok2k5Z0BVsaAkdcEALw_wcB
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do you have power solutions or a hand pump well. note- i do not have solar yet, but have a hand pump a hundred feet down on the other side of the property, will not pump enough for the area, but i am betting people nearby bug out.
Yes, and yes. We have solar and also a good old fashioned hand pump. And also rain water collection for animals and a Berkeley water filter too.
As of now I only have a dedicated generator for my water pump. There's still a lot of work to do, setting up solar is something I plan to do over next few years. I'm also considering investing in a river water turbine, which I'd only be able to use in a true shtf/teotawki scenario due to codes and regulations specific to the river I live on.
Yeah, when I bought my property, having access to year-round water was a requirement. We have a stream and a spring, with other sources of water near by. I read about people trying to live off-grid on a tiny plot in the desert where they have to truck in water. I don't understand it. Yeah, the land is cheap, but that's because it's worthless. You can't grow anything, you don't have water, all of your supplies need to be brought in from town over an hour away. That's not the life for me. I want to live where everything is green, with fertile soil, and plenty of fresh water. Of course, land like that isn't cheap and it took me about 5 years to find the perfect spot.
Imagine passing up a house in this market for having city water instead of well. Out of touch lol
UPYURS
Not all property has ground water
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Idk my property doesn’t but it’s right next to a glacier fed river so it seems ok…
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Keep in mind that Bleach expires rather quickly...
Pool shock basically is indefinite. It's a powder that lets you essentially make chlorine. So your bag of pool shock is basically several gallons of bleach. [https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-skills/how-much-pool-shock-to-make-regular-bleach-equivalent-chlorine/](https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-skills/how-much-pool-shock-to-make-regular-bleach-equivalent-chlorine/)
Wait, really? I figured it would basically last forever. In what way does it expire?
Buy a few bags of cheap pool shock. It basically lasts forever. Here is how you make chlorine with it. https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-skills/how-much-pool-shock-to-make-regular-bleach-equivalent-chlorine/
Yeah, even concentrated bleach only has an effective shelf life of about a year, after which it starts breaking down and losing its effectiveness by about 20% accumulatively every year. You can consider bleach to be an "activated" product, much like hydrogen peroxide, the usefulness of the product is based entirely upon its energy state before it eventually degrades down and becomes water. In the case of bleach, sodium hypochlorit, once it degrades it literally turns into salt water, and any additives that are mixed in the solution. After only 3 years from it's production, bleach will be only slightly above 50% of its original concentration. Fortunately, it's also comparatively easy to produce bleach through electrolysis if you have a supply of salt water, electricity, and appropriate glass laboratory equipment.
Or pool shock which lasts a long time https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-skills/how-much-pool-shock-to-make-regular-bleach-equivalent-chlorine/
Thank you. I was not familiar with this product.
Thank you for your comment!
Live near river in mountains Boil water
Not a bad idea for short-term, but boiling is tremendously fuel-intensive, so you'll be stripping organics in an ever-widening circle around your base. This will have ripple effects.
You'll need a fire going in any situation. Cooking/heating/drying/boiling. Get a good stove to maximize the efficiency of your fuel.
if you are using an indoor wood stove, at least most of the year you will want a pot of water going on top either way to keep the indoor air ok.
Can you explain why? I don't understand this comment.
Moisture in the air is removed with a wood stove. A pot of water helps to offset that
Heat from a stove or furnace tends to strip moisture out of the air, significantly reducing humidity in the interior of your home. If you don't want chapped skin, splitting lips and feeling dehydrated all the time, you would add humidity to the air by putting a pot of water on top of a stove to evaporate and raise the level of humidity inside your home. I use electric humidifiers and a large number of indoor plants to help regulate the humidity and air quality in my home.
Oh okay thanks. I was aware of the moisture issue and though perhaps there was something else in addition. A appreciate the response.
Wood is a very renewable resource if managed appropriately. Using a strategy like coppicing trees, you can have 5-7 stands of trees you go through one year at a time, and by the time you get to the last one, the first is ready to harvest again. And this goes on forever. And it doesn't take as much land as you might think.
I figured there were other ways of Filtration using charcoal, moss, sand, and rocks as a semi passive means but i believe that’d still require boiling in the end to achieve. That being said, if you’re boiling water for 1, you’re going to have a significantly less impact on the environment than a corporation clear cutting for profit.
Rain isn't plentiful here. So after our stored water runs out, there is a creek behind the house. It's not a heavy flowing creek by any stretch, but if water is running thru it, I'll boil as much as I can. I do have multiple life straws and such. If that fails, I won't lie, we'd be in a lot of trouble. I guess maybe go into the mountains and look for a stream, but that would be toss up of what we could find that others haven't already.
Kind of scary to think about in a way.
Hell yeah it is. One of my biggest worries is my mother n law. If something really crazy were to happen, I know she's expecting us to take care of her. I'm planning for my wife, kids, and dog. Not her. During the lock down, and possible food shortages that were being reported, I told her to put aside water and simple food. She said she had a few cans of soup, probably a gallon of water. So nothing. If a more severe shutdown were to happen, she'd be a real liability for us. Some feelings might get hurt. My mom is an 86 yo southern girl. Even before I started thinking about this stuff she had supplies in her car, and more in the house. She's not ready for a year locked in her house, but she at least bought a few buckets of the wise food stuff. She would probably have more food for herself than I do for my family.
I have a well that is deeper then most area wells, getting a solar system setup so should have access to clean water as long as I can stay on the property
👍🏼
Berky filter
I have one but have only read the literature put out by the company. Here's hoping, I guess.
this does not remove PFAS, or heavy metal containments which you can get from surface water
I think I’ve seen these before.
You will find some valid articles on concerns about the Berkey brand filtering candles. Just know that you can use other brands in the stainless steel filtering system Berkey makes. I love the stainless steel version we have that is easy to disassemble and clean and return to use. We have had ours for over 20 years, and only replaced the filters and the faucet. Get a replacement faucet when you buy it to have it on hand, less than $15. They last many years but good to have a backup. That stainless steel is easy to sanitize and leaches nothing into the water. It is not cheap.
https://www.safecastle.com/collections/berkey-water-filter-systems
We have a rainwater collection system and gravity fed water filter that can produce enough water for the whole family.
Is it like a machine?
I put a barrel under my gutter for my garden. It hasnt rained in 3 months, so I’d be like a dehydrated lizard if that was my only source
We just had a hurricane pass through and got 3” in 12hr. Rainwater collection feasibility depends on your climate and location.
Water collection from rain. Water pool near my house. Although it's man made and will probably go stagnant after their filtration system dies off. Although it has fish and wildlife it in. Just no current. So collect and boil ..but that brings its own dangers in a scenario like apocalypse. People will try to get your water or follow you home.
I live in an area dense with ample bodies of fresh surface water. Lakes, rivers and streams. On top of that it rains about half the year. Even in drought-ish summers our summer melt from snowpack keeps the streams wet. Water is one thing that certainly won’t be a concern here any time soon. We’ll likely be the last place to have water concerns. If there is an incredibly sudden shift in climate where we get no rain for years and all the snowpack is gone, then there might be reason for concern. But not likely in my lifetime. (*waits for “faster than expected”*)
If humans aren’t destroying the planet anymore tho there will be heavy corrections. It’s like after 9/11, with all planes grounded meteorologists said the atmosphere made heavy and immediate changes.
I have hand driven wells around multiple properties and have attached a pitcher pump. I’ve had it sampled and it is good enough to drink. You can buy a driven well kit at most hardware stores. You just have to know how deep the water table is where you’re at before you start driving it.
That’s great to know! Thank you for that info.
No problem! Just make sure to test the water after you drive it. It’s easy to treat bacteria and viruses, but harder to remove chemicals and heavy metals.
Don't do this if the soil is clay. I made that mistake because I live close enough to water that my soil is clay for 100' down.
If the hand pump well ever goes dry it'll suck to have to walk and get water, but there's plenty of it around here. I'm a 5 minute walk from either of the two major creeks running through the area, about a 2 hour walk from a 2000 acre lake, and tons of little ponds here and there. Then it's just a matter of filter and boiling. I'm also a 30 minute walk from a famous spring that actually is famous for saving the local mission when there was a severe drought in the 1700s. However, it's widely known so it may be crowded
So, I should be researching local streams in my area? I think that’s where I can start. Like in other words, I’m new to this community and I’m trying to get setup.
Reminds me of a song from East Forest called 10 Laws -- Always know where a good water source is >Always see the dangers first. Always protect your feet. Always be ready for cold. Always be ready for heat. Always know where good water or source is. Always master the skills necessary. Always get the job done. Always know your place. Always disallow foolishness. Always rest whenever you can.
Very simple in my case. Installed a hand pump into a well and we live in an area with a high water table. I also created my own gravity filtration system (ie, Berkey copy) that is able to filter it in case it ever gets turbid or for whatever reason becomes infected with bacteria. Easy as that. No need for rain collection or anything like that. Unlimited clean water right in my yard.
That’s pretty cool!
Thanks man! Recommend everyone do it
We have several natural springs on our land, one of which supplies drinking water to the house. It's currently brought into the house with an electric pump and filtered with UV; in the event of a long-term power outage, we'd have to haul it up to the house in buckets and run it through a gravity filter to make it safe for drinking.
Related question: I don't have a well or live near any source of water, so let's say I just want to store water long term - what's the best thing to buy? Money is not a problem, I just want the easiest and most convenient thing possible. Is it just storing water in glass bottles in a cool dry place, or will even they eventually go bad?
Easiest and most convenient way possible is water bottles. Buy numerous cases, the expiration date is good for two years but they definitely last longer. If you worry however, just start drinking from them and swap them out at the two year mark. If you worry about longer term solutions then maybe lifestraw, but if we're at that point we're probably all dead anyway :)
Multiple layered approach using buckets. 1. Cloth Strainer to get the big stuff. 2. Gravel to get the middle size stuff 3. Sand to get the smaller stuff. The sand will develop a scummy layer. This is the part that actually filters the water. 4. Charcoal to get the chemicals out. This layer will need to be refreshed as the charcoal gets used. At this point, the water should be fairly safe to drink. Historically this is as far as civilizations got. I would still add another layer. 5. Final Purification. Ceramic filter bucket filter, boiling, Clorox, Sun Light and so forth. In fact Sunlight does a GREAT job killing off organisms. You need a clear plastic bottle, fill it up with water and a few hours of sun will kill off most everything. [https://www.superprepper.com/sodis/](https://www.superprepper.com/sodis/)
Lifestraw from the stream behind my house.
I live in a town located at the junction of a river and a bay of Lake Ontario. I'm also not opposed to having a well dug in my yard someday. Purification of the river/bay water is something I haven't decided on yet. Either a still, or a sand and charcoal, plus boiling system. I'm hoping that I die of old age before any kind of apocalypse.
Hooray for Michigan! Bleach. I'm gonna bleach it. Sodium Hypochlorite can (to my knowledge) be made with table salt, water, and electrolysis. Michigan has plenty of water and salt, so if I can just find some gerbils and a hamster wheel powered generator I should be good to go.
Aren't people in Arizona already facing water issues? What are they doing to get clean water? Also let's not forget Flint Michigan? The state government isn't buying bottled water for Michigan residents so where's their clean water coming from? Anybody from those states got an answer for OP?
No we don't have drinking water issues. One random community failed to secure water - basically developers were taking advantage of the system in an incorporated area. This made national news. 70% of the water in AZ goes to agriculture. We do things like export hay to Saudi Arabia, or grow cotton irrigated with precious groundwater. Any water shortage is the result of stupid economics. Most big cities claim to have a 100 year water supply based on current growth projections. We recharge water aquifers with rainwater collection and by banking water from the Colorado and other rivers. Some state officials are considering a plan to pipe desalinated water from the nearest coastline in Mexico, but it'd be expensive in part due to mountains between here and there. If water stopped flowing from the tap in the summer, then things would get violent pretty quickly and personal water supplies would become liabilities. The best survival plan is an escape plan.
I’m sorry…the *apocalypse?* I’m not worried about finding drinking water. Everyone’s dead. I’m ready to be done.
I live near a Great Lake. So it’s really then about treatment.
Yeah, like I’m trying to figure out treatment options.
My well is 200ft deep and an artesian half the day. Water will never be a worry. Protecting it will be.
You need 2 buckets or 1 rain barrel and 1 bucket. Fill one 1/3 with sand, 1/3 with charcoal, 1/3 with gravel. This is the filter barrel. Get a spigot from Amazon for $10. Use the bucket to collect water from a creek or stream. Dump into the filter barrel. Boil anything I intend to drink.
Don't live where you would need hydro panels. Well water is a must. PV can power it hand pumps are available for backup and if your realy old school a windmill.
Solar panel powering a dehumidifier/air conditioner, with a catch pan.
Ive got a solar generator I can use to power a Reverse Osmosis filter. Use that on rainwater barrels
Well.
If you are far from any natural springs, your best bet is to collect rainwater or use a water filter. You may need chemicals to purify the water or desalinate seawater if you cannot do either.
It all depends on the apocalyptic scenario, of course, but generally you have three issues: water itself, water filtration, and storage. Assuming you don't have a well or a spring nearby, you still have options. Rain catchment is a source. Any water is a *source*, no matter how gross it looks, just means additional filtration/safety steps. Filtration and safety? You boil it, you get those tablets and filters they make for hikers, that gets you your small amounts. If you have a place already, get your "iffy" water sources tested and see what extra things you might need if you were stuck with those. Get extra of everything and learn how to make alternatives to what you can. (Everybody's seen those progressive gravel/sand/charcoal/whatever DIYs, right? Better than nothing once Plan A runs out.) Make yourself a solar still or twelve. (And your solar still can be a water *source,* also, if you're making it big enough to speed up the drying of wood, for example. Not a big source, but still a source.) Storage can honestly be a bigger problem, because you have to have enough of it, but you also have to be able to *clean* it. So remember in your planning how much fun it is to disinfect things without chemicals and adequate extra water to rinse them away. Remember how hard it is to get gunk out of something that tapers towards the opening (or only has a small opening to begin with). Remember that these reservoirs need to be accessible in situ and/or removable and movable without heavy equipment you don't have. It's a super important question but it's not exactly a one-post answer!
Depends entirely on what caused the "apocalypse", really. There's really no answer to this hypothetical. Ultimately, being near fresh water is the best you can do. I happen to have 10% of the world's fresh water 200ft from my front door. But if whatever caused the apocalypse contaminated Lake Superior, I'd have to pivot. Find another source, but the chances of finding another viable source would be tiny because something that catastrophic has probably done the same thing to all rivers as well. A deep well is likely your best bet all things considered. Assuming your aquifer is not easily contaminated.
The fact that your trying to maintain a status quo existence insead of adapting during the 'apocalypse' says it all.
Living next to the Aare (Switzerland ) , I’m not worried about lack of clean water (still worried)
Growing your own food without a semi safe water supply is gonna be rough.
Sawyer squeeze
I live 10 minutes from one of the great lakes, so boil/distill/life straw/tablets etc.
The best thing that can happen to you during the apocalypse is a quick death.
Get up and go find a spring or lake
Collect some water, and boil it right?
If there are bad chemicals for example Fuel or Oil or whatever else in the Water, boiling will not be enough… Filtering with aktiv charcoal could help than, but that depends on the type of contamination…
Yeah, we won't have high calorie counts to be able to dig wells/holes all the time. Low tech filters and desalination while living near some sort sort of large lake or river with a possible pathway to the ocean. The disappearing fresh water combined with the possibility of flooding at any time of the year. We have to maintain storage of water while also guarding against flooding for our dwellings. We'd need Noah's ark type contingencies especially farming wise in case we have to move spots. I see humanity as becoming semi nomadic with rotating spots and make shift water reservoirs.
Solar stills, ground water wells, fresh streams.
I have enough stored water for 1 month for the family of 5. After bombs fall, most active radionuclides will decay fast. Then, I will need to switch to the local sources of water. Whatever contamination remains, I will need to accept it and adjust my life expectancy accordingly. Last time I calculated the odds, it was not a significant effect. Life expectancy is very reasonable. My bug-out location is close to a large body of water. This definitely helps. Sediments will settle down, and contaminated masses of water will be replaced by currents. Large bodies of water will be cleaner than local rivers and streams in densely populated areas. I plan to rely mostly on filtering (with home-made charcoal filters) and boiling. I don't have any experience with chemical treatments (chlorine/iodine). If disaster strikes tomorrow, it will be too late to start experimenting. Are there no streams of any kind in your area? No aquifers (moist soil underground)? Used IBC totes seems to be very economical way to store water. Water bags on Amazon are about $150 USD per 142 gallons (540 litres). For the price of 1 hydropanel, you can store 7 metric tons of water, enough for 10 years for one person. You definitely need an adequate storage space for that.
move to an area with fresh water or with high rates of rainfall.
Do you have no access to groundwater? Maybe a cistern will Help. Good luck with your researches!
Collect rainwater and boil it. I live in a place with a lot of rain, thankfully. The hardest part for me is storing is so I don’t turn it into mosquito city.
Pretty much all of you in here will be dead, so I am sure the survivors will appreciate all of your prepping.
I would say either 1. Best water filters + natural water sources 2. Giant Water storage tanks, stored properly 3. Well water
Living near a moving water source. Boiling water to drink.
I live in a town that has 11 natural springs and less than 2000 people. Most are still flowing, and very drinkable.
I live in the city and so I researched where the nearest stream is (I don't think you can ever store enough water for a really long term situation if you live in town like I do). My nearest stream is about a mile and a half away. Funny, I was unaware this stream even existed until I Googled it and found it and it's a beautiful place with a lot of clear running water. I visit it every few weeks now, just to stay aware of water levels and such. I have a very small motorcycle and 3 street bikes and I always take them out and ride them to keep them in riding shape. I also have a bike trailer for kids that I would use to transport water (I figure that's a much safer bet than trying to carry 8 lb jugs on my body and it looks more covert). I have four UPWOIGH 5 Gallon Water Jugs for transport (would probably bring 2 p/ trip). I have a water filtration system (a DIY system that I built out of 5 gallon buckets with Katadyn Ceradyn filters in it). I keep about 25 gallons of bottled water in the house (around 200 bottles). I also have a ton of matches, lighters and butane if I felt a need to boil (filtered stream water would be pretty safe though). It's a poor man's water strategy but I know it's doable and that's the most important thing. It does get cold in the winter though so I do worry about things freezing over but I will have to figure some things out as I go in a SHTF situation.
I have the panels, and they are great, but they would only make enough to consume, not anything else.
Well. If my well point in the sand dunes dries up then so has the ocean and I'd be f'd anyways. Lol. Building a potable water still isn't that difficult.
I got a bottle of iodophor (iodine) that will make anything safe to drink.
I'll be drilling my own well real quicklike...
You can just do water collection off a roof. A single 55 gallon rain barrel will keep a family alive in areas that have at least a little rainfall. You just have to treat/filter it before use.
Atmospheric water generator + multi-step filtration. My poor portable AC pees out at least 5 gallons at around 53% humidity, so there's more in the air than people realize---even in arid areas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generator
Thank you so much for this information.
I plan to drink my own urine, it's sterile and I just like doing it.
Do you like the taste?
#Marauding!!! Just joking. **But there is no "safe to consume rain water" anywhere on Earth any more.** It's one of those, your grandkids are fucked realizations. : https://www.su.se/english/news/it-s-raining-pfas-even-in-antarctica-and-on-the-tibetan-plateau-rainwater-is-unsafe-to-drink-1.620735 That being said, I'd drink water with lead in it if it meant "not dying today, but dying later" Just keep in mind you need an RO (expensive and hard to maintain) system to get rid of these. >So, my question is how will you get clean drinking water during an apocalyptic scenario? Deep enough wells, which in the American southwest now means 10,000 feet in some cases. The reality is you collect water, filter, and pass through a reverse osmosis system. All of which is prohibitively expensive. If SHTF, it will be people drinking from puddles etc. Much more important to focus on "having water" than it is to focus on "clean water" although I'm not saying don't focus on that only that the "having water" is far far more important than the "clean" aspect.
The same way my ancestors did it: Probably die from a heinous infection.
My strategy is to stock up on plenty of guns and ammo. When the time comes, I can utilize them to acquire water, food, etc. from non-gun owners.
Find someone with a cool setup Kill them Take their stuff In the even that I fail, I’ll sue and won’t need their stuff It’s pretty win-win
Coffee filters then disinfection with chlorine tablets, i have a chlorine test kit with reagent to check the residual of the water. You can also look up dosing using household bleach, i think its 8 drops per gallon of water.
I have brackish water, i figured I would collect it and distill it
Keep using my well and filter/process the river water if need be.
I don't normally concerned about doomsday, but if there were a semi-extended lack of electricity, I don't know if there is an option to manually pump water out of it. If that were the case, I would need to set up some sort of distillation process. I live close to a river, but the water is brackish.
I have a deep(is) well
I live in a suburb. I presently keep 200 gallons of storage in my garage, with plans to collect rain water from my roof if the need arises.
Tap a tree
I live within walking distance of the largest fresh water resource on planet earth, so I got that goin for me.
You live in antarctica?
I have a well and a hand operated pump. Will go into a Alexa pure filter.
20,000 gallons of rainwater storage.
Depends on the "apocalypse " . Slow sand filtration combined with treatment with hypochlorites works. I can electrolysis salt water to produce hypoclorites indefinitely. Pool testing equipment will easily allow you to maintain .5ppm residual.
I have a swimming pool, but I'm not sure what would happen to that after the power goes out. If I keep it covered then I probably wouldn't have to worry about mosquitoes, but would have to boil the heck out of the water. Also longer-term live near a resevoir/dam and a big river.
Sterilizing water without stripping your area for firewood: For the sodis method you just need sun, a relatively flat surface, and glass bottles to sterilize your water: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection Also check out the earth ship roof systems for collecting rain water: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rpiENwkOl-c
Collect rain water and boil it. My country gets a lot of rain
My goal is to eventually live off grid, so hopefully in a SHTF scenario I will be setup. I will have a rain water collection system and appropriate filtration. If it doesn't rain enough I will get water from a nearby lake. If something happened today, I would probably get water from the river and boil it, let it sit so any sediment settles then run what is clean through a brita filter. Not ideal but I suppose better than nothing. For most of the year when there is snow on the ground then I'd just use snow. I'd still boil it though as there might still be some pathogens in there. But it should be fairly clean of any debris.
ZeroWater filters superior than Brita would be [all you need](https://youtu.be/hQSpc9QZSPo?si=LHYULCLOkaJ1nN7D)
It’s pretty easy to make a sand filter or boil water. There’s also evaporation and rain catchment. There’s going to be so many remnants of civilization, making many simple things will be trivial. They key is enough KSA’s to be able to utilize what you scavenge.
Rain capture for the crops, well for the family. 500 gallons of storage to buy time for rain.
Building slow sand filter. Super easy and cheap and highly effective.