Without water, anything living will certainly perish. For humans, the time for that to happen can be as short as 3 days. Unfortunately, following disasters of all types, even the best bottled water to drink is rapidly wiped off of the store shelves in short order. And, unless you already have water shortage solutions in place prior to such a disaster, you and your family could be in big trouble.
1. Treating Water With Chlorine Bleach
Normal household chlorine bleach can be used in very small amounts in order to purify water for drinking. This will generally kill any bacteria and viruses that would otherwise make the water unsafe to drink. However, you must be sure to use chlorine bleach and not any "color-safe" alternatives. Also, be sure to use unscented chlorine bleach as the additives used to make the scent could be potentially unsafe to drink, and you obviously would not want that in your final drinking water.
As a guide, you would want to use about 2 drops of unscented chlorine bleach for each liter of untreated water or 8 drops per gallon. After adding the drops, allow the water to sit for a minimum of 30 minutes and preferably an hour or more to be certain that all viruses and bacteria have been eliminated before drinking.
Since most households already have chlorine bleach on-hand, this may be one of the most viable of fresh drinking water shortage solutions.
2. Use The Best Survival Water Filter For Removing Pathogens
Filtering water is a viable option as one of your water shortage solutions provided that you have the right type of filter for the job. Not just any filter will work as not all water filters typically sold in stores are capable of removing the very small bacteria and viruses that may be present in untreated water from a questionable source. Those department store-bought filters are generally only designed to remove impurities that affect taste and smell of the water.
Ceramic block and/or gravity-fed type water filters are typically what you will be looking for here. These come in sizes intended for your kitchen counter, whole-home sized systems, (some) portable pitchers, and even small "straw" filters made for backpacks and other carry anywhere applications. As such, the best survival water filter will be of the ceramic block type in the size or platform that best fills your needs.
3. Purify The Water With A UV Light Purifier
Most pathogens are easily destroyed with exposure to UV light. For this reason, a method for purifying water that is becoming more popular involves using a device, typically a special bottle or canister, that has a battery operated light that fits into the unit to expose the water that you add to UV rays, thereby killing bacteria and viruses to make the water safe to drink.
These devices will typically come with instructions that may vary by manufacturer. The basic concept works as follows: pre-filter water with coffee filter or similar cloth to remove larger dirt and particles, place water and light device into the bottle, activate the UV light for the specified time (often while stirring or shaking), and then you're able to drink the water.
4. Distill Water From Questionable Sources
Distilling is a process of evaporating and then collecting water from the steam that was created. Since particles and pathogens can't be carried by water in a steam state, the resulting water is quite pure. Of these water shortage solutions, this one requires setting up a system of containers and tubes to heat the water and then condense and collect that purified water, and it can be more difficult though not impossible to do once a disaster strikes.
Distilled water for drinking is probably one of the safest in terms of ensuring that no contaminants or pathogens are left present in the water after the process. However, it is important to note that any minerals that would typically be found in drinking water are also removed by the process. So, it may be beneficial to supplement calcium and other minerals if this method is used long-term.
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