Water is the most important resource to have. In northern Europe, the US and Russia, it can simply be obtained from nearby streams and rooftops. However the water needs to be purified, or else you are at high risk of developing serious disease. If your situation is different, please inform yourself about alternative methods to secure water. It is realistic to exepect that clean tap water will still be available some of the time to some degree.
- at least 2x 200L drums to store water
- 30+ day supply of bottled water
water purification
- chlorine (bleach), 2-8mg/L
- iodine (alternative), 16-30mg/L
- camping straw-filters (<=0.1 micron), filters microbes as well as radioactive particles
- reusable plastic coffee filters for prefiltering
Chlorine and iodine, even if used beyond listed concentrations, are very very rare to produce serious health effects, if then mainly in people of poor health or old age. Adding more chlorine shortens the time you have to wait until the water is disinfected. For a high concentration (6mg/L, 1.8 drops per liter with 7% bleach), at least 30 minutes are needed if not several hours. For a low concentration (1mg/L), several days are needed and the water must be very clean to begin with. Prefiltering the water reduces bad byproducts from chlorination.
In a survival situation, high amounts of chlorine must be used, which makes it taste rather intolerable and undrinkable. Over time the chlorine will “air out”.
Straw-filters can be infused with iodine upon first use to make them more effective, by running a 1L solution of 100mg several times through. Dirty water needs to be pre-filtered with cloths and coffee filters, to remove particulate matter and solid material which would diminish your straw-filter’s max capacity. Since the water is already cleaned, add only 2mg/L of chlorine (0.6 drops per liter if your bleach is 7%) to the filtered water and wait at least 2 hours before you drink it. Straw-filters also filter pathogens, but not all of them. Their main advantage is to somewhat reduce radioactive particles, some pollutants and to provide better prefiltering for chlorination.