Long time thought, first time asking

[gmerkt]

So my question: why aren't more people flexing their creative (and functional) ways to preparing water?

Because it isn't exciting to the survivalist mind, in most cases. Aside from or not just limited to water supply, real world priorities can be experienced for training purposes in an extended power outage. It becomes obvious real quick that you spend a lot more time doing living chores than the things involving "sharp and pointy" things and guns. In cold weather environments, it only gets harder.

I suppose even urban streams are a viable source in a true emergency.

In dire circumstances, people's standards will diminish with increased need.

Rainwater is another matter. It's basically distilled by mother nature and is absolutely clean until it hits your collection surface.

In Australia, in ordinary circumstances some people living outside of town have cistern systems for runoff rain collection. Toward the latter part of the dry season, sometimes the cisterns go empty and they have to summon a water truck for refill. Of course in a survivalist situation, the water trucks may not be available so I'm not sure what they'd do then.

 

[Unavailable_NA]

I know a few people in the states who have cisterns as well, but they don't drink from it. They buy 5gal jugs of filtered water to drink out of.

I suppose my point (or personal thought) is that I need to research how to build some sort of filter system for murky water to both clear it up and then maybe have a diy charcoal filter to aid in sterilization.

 

[Unavailable_NA]

Bleach is your friend for keeping potable water potable. Lifestraws are part of the kit as well.

I wonder how to make bleach? Presuming system failure, bleach becomes a finite resource.

 

[nammac]

I wonder how to make bleach? Presuming system failure, bleach becomes a finite resource.

Here's just a couple of examples, there's a bunch more out there…

View: https://youtu.be/6MCutMwAH_w?feature=shared

View: https://youtu.be/c_7is0Od3bE

 

[Cavedweller]

I suppose my point (or personal thought) is that I need to research how to build some sort of filter system for murky water to both clear it up and then maybe have a diy charcoal filter to aid in sterilization.

Charcoal will not sterilize (i.e. kill microorganisms). It will remove unwanted chemicals and improve flavor, but a sterilization method (boiling, UV light, or other) will be needed after charcoal filtering.

Have you explored reverse osmosis systems? They do it all, and are not that expensive.

Top 10 Reverse Osmosis Water Filters 2025 - Consumer Picks

www.consumerpicks.org

 

[3MTA3]

Water is important. More troops died in the Civil War from dysentery than any cause including gunshot. Healthy potable water is the result of finding and filtering/treating water and implementing sanitation to prevent contaminating the water. There are huge resources at survivalmonkey.com .

I use a Big Berkey with a double set of black filters for stationary situations, Sawyer filters (can be back flushed to clean for indefinite use) for mobile situations (one in each vehicle), lifestraws for the unprepared, Polarpure supersaturated iodine as a backup (you can also put a chunk of iodine in a small bottle and add water).

Berkey and other QUALITY filters can be used in a a system fabricated from plastic buckets as mentioned above.

In the event of a prolonged event my plans are to make sure everybody in the neighborhood knows that their toilets will continue to flush as long as they keep filling the tanks with water AND where that water exists nearby. Yes, I have extra buckets not because I'm a nice guy. I just don't want to get sick and die because someone else doesn't have any sense.

Mainly you DON'T want people crapping outside once their toilets stop working. If it get real bad community sanitation could be implemented in a green space using the military manuals available at the monkey. Make sure you identify an appropriate location in advance. Always have a plan in lace before some unprepared idiot just starts digging a pit in his back yard or throwing his crap over the fence.

TP will run out, so if you are smart fabricate a bunch of "personal rags" to hand out along with instruction to sanatize with bleach or boiling water after use. Most people will have trouble thinking and acting outside their norms, so it's in you best self interest to guide them along so their poor sanitization doesn't get you sick or killed.

 

[Mono1]

Water is important. More troops died in the Civil War from dysentery than any cause including gunshot. Healthy potable water is the result of finding and filtering/treating water and implementing sanitation to prevent contaminating the water. There are huge resources at survivalmonkey.com .

I use a Big Berkey with a double set of black filters for stationary situations, Sawyer filters (can be back flushed to clean for indefinite use) for mobile situations (one in each vehicle), lifestraws for the unprepared, Polarpure supersaturated iodine as a backup (you can also put a chunk of iodine in a small bottle and add water).

Berkey and other QUALITY filters can be used in a a system fabricated from plastic buckets as mentioned above.

In the event of a prolonged event my plans are to make sure everybody in the neighborhood knows that their toilets will continue to flush as long as they keep filling the tanks with water AND where that water exists nearby. Yes, I have extra buckets not because I'm a nice guy. I just don't want to get sick and die because someone else doesn't have any sense.

Mainly you DON'T want people crapping outside once their toilets stop working. If it get real bad community sanitation could be implemented in a green space using the military manuals available at the monkey. Make sure you identify an appropriate location in advance. Always have a plan in lace before some unprepared idiot just starts digging a pit in his back yard or throwing his crap over the fence.

TP will run out, so if you are smart fabricate a bunch of "personal rags" to hand out along with instruction to sanatize with bleach or boiling water after use. Most people will have trouble thinking and acting outside their norms, so it's in you best self interest to guide them along so their poor sanitization doesn't get you sick or killed.

Excellent Post @3MTA3 , Thanks!

 

[Cavedweller]

In the event of a prolonged event my plans are to make sure everybody in the neighborhood knows that their toilets will continue to flush as long as they keep filling the tanks with water AND where that water exists nearby.

Good post.

I was down at my BOL many years ago during an extended power outage and it took me a couple days to figure out that it was a lot easier (and more comfortable) to haul water from the pond in a bucket to fill the W.C. than to dig a slit trench. LOL

 

[doncheeto]

It's definitely something that recently on my radar. I think we like to "fantasize" with cool guns & gear. But we're most likely to die from dysentery or starvation. I like to watch stuff from cana provisions, good water decon education.

 

[3MTA3]

It's definitely something that recently on my radar. I think we like to "fantasize" with cool guns & gear. But we're most likely to die from dysentery or starvation. I like to watch stuff from cana provisions, good water decon education.

Well, this IS a gun forum, so it's pretty natural. Of the survival forums I strongly suggest survivalmonkey.com. No pretense, no attitude, just a fairly small group of people with some legitimate SME's and an incredible wealth of information including downloadable documents.

Even there guns take up more bandwidth than they should. IMO it's because in order to survive it's best if you don't get killed first.

 

[doncheeto]

Well, this IS a gun forum, so it's pretty natural. Of the survival forums I strongly suggest survivalmonkey.com. No pretense, no attitude, just a fairly small group of people with some legitimate SME's and an incredible wealth of information including downloadable documents.

Even there guns take up more bandwidth than they should. IMO it's because in order to survive it's best if you don't get killed first.

I'll have to check that out! Thanks for the link.

What I'm referring to is the social media aspect of it. You always see social media guys telling you how you should set up your guns for this and that. But it's hardly ever "Hey how you gonna decontaminate your water so it's safe to drink?"

In the social media world it's cooler to just talk about your guns rather than survival skills hahaha.

 

[3MTA3]

I'll have to check that out! Thanks for the link.

What I'm referring to is the social media aspect of it. You always see social media guys telling you how you should set up your guns for this and that. But it's hardly ever "Hey how you gonna decontaminate your water so it's safe to drink?"

In the social media world it's cooler to just talk about your guns rather than survival skills hahaha.

That's true, but there are tons of Youtube videos on the subject. If you start searches for them YT will start to steer them your way. Survival/Preparedness channels that focus on guns are usually a waste of time.

The information you want is out there but it won't come knocking at your door.