Category Archives: WATER

All things water go here. water procurement, treatment, water storage, sanitation systems. Sanitation systems MAY also go under medical.

water storage 2L coke bottles

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Clean water is one of the highest priorities for survival. Generally you could go for 3 days without water although that would not be wise.

 

It is generally recommended to store at least one gallon of water per person per day for consumption. This would be a bare minimum to have on hand. So for a family of 4 you would need 12 gallons of water for 3 days just for drinking.

 

What we have found to work the best for storing water are 2 L coke bottles. Coke bottles are rated to store 7 to 10 years with coke product in it under pressure. That is what a coke dealer told me. If the bottle will last that long with a corrosive agent under pressure without failing it should last for many decades holding water.

 

Our procedure is to gather several used / empty coke bottles and after removing the labels we wash them out with plan dish soap and water. Rinse well and fill with tap water & let them set over night. The next day empty that water out into the garden or flower pots [around here we do not want to waste water as we only get 10 to 14 inches of rain a year].

 

We the fill the bottles with either tap water or distilled water, leaving a one inch head space and then replace the cap hand tight. The filled bottles then go on selves for later use.

 

City tap water already has chlorine in it which will kill any bugs and for the distilled water there should have been enough chlorine in the rinse water to have disinfected the bottles and there should not be any bugs in the distilled water. If done properly there should be no reason to rotate this water for at least 10 years.

 

We have been storing water this way for over 30 years. One friend currently has 11 months worth of water stored in this fashion.

 

If you have to move your water from one side of the room to the other or from one floor to another, OR if you have to load some of it into the car for a camping trip, even a 3 – 5 year old can help carry it.

 

PS –NEVER use the ‘milk’ jug type containers as they are designed to fail within about a year.

Water West Virginia

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Last Thursday [2014 –Jan- 09]  in West Virginia, a chemical spill was identified that flowed into  a river a mile or so up stream from the intake point that was the water source for 9 counties. Other towns down stream from this also harvest water from this river. This chemical [4-methylcyclohexane methanol ] which is a hydrocarbon, can cause eye & skin irritation, headaches and breathing difficulties, among other not so fun reactions.

The best solution for most people is to have water storage PRIOR to any contamination incident.

It is difficult at best to process this type of contaminated water. The 4-methylcyclohexane methanol has a boiling point cooler than water. This makes it hard to process the water by distillation in a field situation. As with most hydrocarbons you can clean it up with activated carbon which is basically ground up charcoal which you can make at home.

We will discuss water treatment later.

Many if not most eateries who could not afford to truck in the volumes of clean water needed simply closed for the duration. To say that the economy in that region was adversely affected would be somewhat of an understatement.

On the Monday following the chemical spill I was listening to the news on the radio. Part of the report was that people were ‘abandoning their homes” and going to out laying communities ‘in search of food”.  This ties into a conversation that I had with S.W. about the declining ability of people to cook for themselves.

Late in the week the water department reported that the levels of the contaminate had fallen to ‘safe’ levels and the affected residents were told to run all of their taps to finish flushing out the water system and that after words the water would be safe to drink. BUT out of an abundance of caution, pregnant women should boil their water before consuming. This seems to be a ‘feel good’ bit of advice as discussed earlier.

The take away from this is [A] to have water storage in your home and office for consumption, [B] learn the actually facts of whatever you are faced with. [C] learn how to cook and do other stuff for yourself – which does not mean that you have to personally do everything yourself – so that you can tell when you are being lied to.

water storage 2L coke bottles

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Clean water is one of the highest priorities for survival. Generally you could go for 3 days without water although that would not be wise.

It is generally recommended to store at least one gallon of water per person per day for consumption. This would be a bare minimum to have on hand. So for a family of 4 you would need 12 gallons of water for 3 days just for drinking.

What we have found to work the best for storing water are 2 L coke bottles. Coke bottles are rated to store 7 to 10 years with coke product in it under pressure. That is what a coke dealer told me. If the bottle will last that long with a corrosive agent under pressure without failing it should last for many decades holding water.

Our procedure is to gather several used / empty coke bottles and after removing the labels we wash them out with plan dish soap and water. Rinse well and fill with tap water & let them set over night. The next day empty that water out into the garden or flower pots [around here we do not want to waste water as we only get 10 to 14 inches of rain a year].

We the fill the bottles with either tap water or distilled water, leaving a one inch head space and then replace the cap hand tight. The filled bottles then go on selves for later use.

City tap water already has chlorine in it which will kill any bugs and for the distilled water there should have been enough chlorine in the rinse water to have disinfected the bottles and there should not be any bugs in the distilled water. If done properly there should be no reason to rotate this water for at least 10 years.

We have been storing water this way for over 30 years. One friend currently has 11 months worth of water stored in this fashion.

If you have to move your water from one side of the room to the other or from one floor to another, OR if you have to load some of it into the car for a camping trip, even a 3 – 5 year old can help carry it.

PS –NEVER use the ‘milk’ jug type containers as they are designed to fail within about a year.

Re-Hydration drink

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This is about the best all-around recipe for Re-Hydration drink—- this replaces Pedialyte and Gatorade / sports drinks, a lot cheaper too.
Mix as follows and you can pre-mix into unit dose packets for use while you are on the move.

In a 1 L container mix the following
1/2 teaspoon salt substitute �KCl aka �NU-salt�
1 pinch Epson salt MaSo4–optional add ½ tsp Himalayan salt
2 tablespoon sugar [omit to use in Jell-O or instant potatoes]
Kool-aid to taste    [omit to use in Jell-O or instant potatoes]
Chill and serve —

BTW, Kool-aid comes in a colorless version too for when the person is vomiting. .

It is always better to prevent de-hydration by drinking water. How much should you drink a day? It is NOT the oft repeated 8, 8 ounce glasses.  For the basic amount take your weight in pounds and divide by 2 = the number of ounces you should drink a day. This amount assumes that you are sitting at a desk. The best way to know that you are drinking enough is to check your urine. Normal healthy urine is clear to straw color with no odor. In babies we like to see 8-12 wet diapers a day. Most adults should do the same � ahhh EXCEPT hopefully without diapers.

Are there other recipes? Yup, just like IVs you can mix this to replace electrolytes that lab work shows are missing.

Fluid & electrolytes

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My observations & comments also make good teasers for further research on your part. ;]

Generally, it is very hard to drink too much water. Most of us do not drink enough water to begin with.

DON’T DRINK TOO MUCH WATER.

We all know that dehydration can be dangerous, leading to dizziness, seizures and death, but drinking too much water can be just as bad. In 2002, 28 year old Cynthia Lucero collapsed midway through the Boston marathon. Rushed to a hospital, she fell into a coma and died.  In the aftermath it emerged that she had drunk large amounts of water along the run. The excess liquid in her system induced a syndrome called ‘exercise-associated hyponatremia’ or EAH for short. In which an imbalance in the body’s sodium levels creates a dangerous swelling of the brain.

STATS up to one third of endurance athletes who collapse during events suffer from EAH. Between 1989 and 1996, when the US army mandated heavy fluid intake during exercise in high heat. EAH caused at least 6 deaths. [Statistically that is not very many.]

[And the Israelis have used the ‘over-drink’ plans for decades with good results]

DON”T drink more than 1.5 quarts of water per hour during sustained, intense exercise. But do consume plenty of salt along with your fluids.

BEAT THE HEAT

A rock formation in Utah called The Wave is remote and beautiful, but also arid and sweltering. This past July, a couple hiking the area was found dead after the afternoon heat overwhelmed them while hiking. Scarcely three weeks later, a 27 year old woman collapsed while hiking the wave with her husband and died before he could get help.

STAT an average of 675 people die each year in the US from heat related complications.

DO: carry lots of fluids, hike in the morning and let people know where you are going when trekking in the desert.

Both of these paragraphs were in the October 2013 issue of Popular Mechanics which is overall a great publication. I transcribed them both and may not be exactly as it was in the magazine.  As far as they go they make good teasers for greater research.

My observations & comments also make good teasers for further research on your part. ;]

Generally, it is very hard to drink too much water. Most of us do not drink enough water to begin with.

The topic of fluid and electrolyte balance is broad enough that literally volumes of books have been written about it. Sodium Chloride [NaCl or table salt] is only 1 of the major electrolytes and if you eat a modern diet you are getting WAY more sodium than you need, in fact most cardiologists recommend LIMITING your sodium intake to generally less than 2,000 mg [2 grams] a day. It was interesting a few years ago when I was trained [and FDA certified] to run a wet pack food cannery. Each 14 to 16 ounce can of product we add more than half a teaspoon of table salt. Potassium chloride [KCl or salt substitute]  is another very important electrolyte which when most people think of bananas as ‘the’ source. Potatoes are actually a better source of potassium. Salt substitute [aka No-Salt or NU-salt brand names] is considered by some a VERY dangerous, because this ONE person that they know got into [medical] trouble using it. Well yes, some people do get into trouble with it. There IS such a thing as over use or abuse of anything. People get into trouble with too much table salt [NaCl]. Other electrolytes include magnesium, calcium, zinc, chloride and bicarbonate. EVERYTHING in moderation aka, don’t be stupid.

An interesting side note on potassium – it is a vital nutrient and it is one of the 3 ‘drugs’ used during lethal injection when the state kills someone.

See another post on re-hydration drink.

Sterilizing surgical instruments in an autoclave. Back in the ‘war of northern aggression’ aka the first American civil war, they did not sterilize the surgical instruments between patients, most of the time they did not even wash them nor their hands in between patients. Back then the medical profession did not even know about the germ theory. Hence, many people died of infection.  Also back then we did not have ANY type of antibiotics.

 Today in a modern medical facility we have autoclaves that will fit on a table top and ‘industrial’ sized ones that you could walk into. The basic way that an autoclave works is by both raising the temperature to around 270 degrees F and the air pressure to around 15 PSI inside of a container which in turn kills all of the germs inside the instrument package. Typically you would maintain this for 10 to 45 minutes and then let it rest –just like cooking- to cool naturally to a temperature the was safe for you to handle. You can sterilize instruments individually or in ‘sets’ such as a suture set consisting of a needle driver or locking pliers, thumb forceps and scissors. The instruments would be wrapped in a double layer of cloth so that a ‘dirty’ person can hand the package to a ‘sterile’ person without contaminating either one of them.

 Now that we have that basis of understanding we can discuss what to do in a ‘field’ situation when you have to do all that outside of a modern medical facility like in a disaster or SHTF situation.

Mirro pressure cooker

Mirro pressure cooker

 In essence an autoclave is just a fancy [and high priced] pressure cooker or canner without the bells and whistles. Recently I was at several garage or rummage sales. At one of them –most likely an estate sale – I came across a colander for 50 cents and on another table there was a Mirromatic pressure cooker for $8.00 – it had ALL the spare / replacement parts to be able to maintain it for MANY years. And as you can see on the photo they were a perfect fit for each other!!! The colander in this case will suspend the instruments up out of the water and yet allow the steam and heat all the way around the package.   IM004523

 Now for the procedure. Step one wash your hands. :} that is ALWAYS the first step in any medical procedure. Then gather your supplies, in this case instruments you have already cleaned, cloth wraps -4 each, autoclave tape with is just masking tape that has strips of latex on it that turn brown when autoclaved – if you don’t have that, then just use plain masking tape and a magic marker to write on the tape the date and contents. Your home autoclave [pressure cooker and colander- if you don’t have one which will fit like my new one, then use 2 colanders which will fit inside the pressure cooker to keep the package out of the water]. Fill the pressure cooker about 2 inches deep with the cleanest water you have. Process the package.

 For longer and safer storage of your sterilized instrument package once it has cooled down and is totally dry you can wrap it with plastic.

 Let us pray that we never need to use this information in a real situation.

 

colander inserted into pressure cooker, almost as if they were made for each other.

colander inserted into pressure cooker, almost as if they were made for each other.