Survive Infinite Dangers: The Family Survival Guide of 21st Century Dangers (14 page)

Tap water from a municipal water system contains chlorine in enough quantity to use it as your source of storable water. Just remember – no sunlight. And remember to fill all containers in your home with water (bathtubs, sinks, washers and so on) before the municipal water system runs dry. Unless you have a way to seal it, you’ll need to treat the water before drinking it. Yes, it does have the municipal supplied chlorine in it but bacteria can quickly take over standing water leaving it not fit to drink. Use it as your standby “clean” water source if you run out of bottled water. If you are going to pinch pennies – do not do it on water! Water is the most important item the human body needs to survive. Three days without water and you are close to death while you can survive for two to four weeks without food.

Assuming you are starting with water that is a bit murky or even dirty, pour it through a handkerchief or cheese cloth from one container to another until the water is as clear as possible. Do not ring the wet cloth out into the clean water! Yes, I actually saw someone do that one time. A towel or any fabric that soaks up water is inefficient as it will soak up a lot of the water you want to keep. A thin cotton shirt works well. How much water fabric retains is obvious. If the water is too dirty, acidic or even something like urine, no amount of straining then treating is going to make it safe to drink. Some books say so but I have no interest in testing their assurances.

If you boil water do so for at least five minutes then pour it from one container to another a number of times to add oxygen. Do not depend on tap water purifiers to purify dirty water. They are meant to add a bit of extra purification to water from the tap that is probably already perfectly safe to drink. But judging by how many are sold there are many people who do not trust their municipal water (in spite of having to meet rigid federal and state water safety standards). Personally, I don’t see the need for one unless a home is on well water. Then more than a faucet water purifier should be involved to insure safe water.

Other methods of making water safe to drink include stabilized oxygen, bleach (for a quart of water add two drops to clear water and four drops to cloudy water – multiply or divide as needed based on the size of the container – be sure the bleach mixes well before drinking the water), water purification tablets (available on-line, drug stores, sporting goods stores and even Super Walmart) release chlorine or iodine into the water. Carefully read the instructions. Such tablets usually have a shelf life of five years but, once again, read the instructions or the box, halazone tablets (not my tablet of choice as the shelf life is only two years (if they turn yellow – time to throw them away). I mention halazone tablets as paramedics seem to carry them for emergency sterilization (I’ve always wanted to ask an EMT “why halazone? I strongly recommend you read “Portable Water Purification” on the Web site
www.wikipedia.com
for the best and most complete tutorial on water purification I’ve found and in just a few pages. There is no reason to waste space in this book for what you can read on Wikipedia. Note: as always, be sure to print a copy! I can’t repeat it often enough; with no power you’ll have no Internet and no computer! Print everything you may need in a crisis including this book if you obtained it in electronic format.

These are also found in the same stores as the other tablets. Tincture of iodine (three drops per quart for clear water and six drops for cloudy water) will kill all bacteria but be prepared to drink brownish-red water with a slight taste of iodine. Pregnant women and people with thyroid problems should not use iodine.

There are commercially available water distillery systems (yes, the simple boil one container and the steam condenses in the other container with the two connected by a tube. The commercial ones often add a filter and a twist in the tube to catch some of the impurities in the steam. You would think this would be the cleanest, safest water there is but that is not true. Bacteria can be lifted by the steam even though you can’t see it. Personally if I had a flame I’d opt for boiling the water for at least five minutes and probably ten to be safe. Be sure the containers are as clean as possible or even sterile.

Chlorine: Chlorine can be an unstable and even hazardous substance even though it is the chemical of choice by most municipal water departments. It will work but use at your own risk and read up on storage and use. If you own a swimming pool you’ve probably had at least one run-in with accidentally breathing in pure chlorine then have no sense of smell for a few days to (worst case) a trip to the hospital.

Take purifying water for granted after having no problems for 1,000 times you’ll cut corners just one time and then pay the price for days afterwards. Consider purifying water as carefully as you would treat a medical wound. And, above all, thoroughly stir the newly safe (you hope!) water and let it stand for 30 minutes for sterilization to take place and for oxygen to add to the water molecules. Lastly, properly sealed water actually becomes safer over time as any minute amount of bacteria dies over time without oxygen. But check your water from time to time and if any bottles have turned even slightly cloudy, throw it out.

If worst comes to worse and all you have to drink is stinking, rancid water then spend hours preparing it and a minute to drink it. Drinking a small amount then wait a few hours might be a good idea to see if you really did turn it into drinking water. If you can boil then distill the water (that’s where the boiling water “gas” (boiling water is a gas) goes up (like in “up”) through a clean glass tube then back down to another clean (notice I keep using the word clean) container that collects the distilled water. That is a lot of work to get a few cups of water an hour but well worth it as you’ve probably had “Montezuma’s Revenge” at least once in your life. Bad in normal times; it can kill you in bad times. Google the word distill or phrase “distill water” to learn all you need to know and even buy a simple water distillery (inexpensive) as a backup to your backup. Google the phrase “make clean water” to read about techniques such as straining bad water through handkerchiefs as a first step (see, you really do have a need for all those pieces of cloth aunt Lucy gave you EVERY Christmas!) Keep straining until the water is no longer brown and no longer has things visibly floating in it.

As I say, I know some water pills claim to make urine drinkable but “no thanks”. Would I say that when I’m nine months out and my six months of supplies are gone – yes, I would do almost anything to survive in such a situation. I draw the line at cannibalism or even the family pet. I’ll die a week sooner rather than leave this earth with something like that on my conscious.

However, bottled water in liter bottles are so cheap these days why mess with all the gadgets sold to distill, make, etc. water. Every time I go to Super Walmart I buy two more cases (24 bottles) of water. At $3.48 a case that is cheap. Buy the big bottles to buy water even cheaper. I now have enough water for six people for a year. But, remember, you use up drinking water fast! Water is listed in this book as one of the items you can’t have enough of. Just in case, I’ll keep buying plus I have plenty of the bad water tablets as I have an outside pool with 22,000 gallons of dirty water in it.

Drinking only water can get old (plus you need powdered milk for calcium of course and fruit drinks so buy some pop to splurge on rare occasions, Coke, 7-Up and so forth. You need some sugar (as well as salt and other basic trace minerals – read up on what the human body needs – foods usually provide these elements) in your diet, just not a lot. Also covered in the FOOD section will be juices such as V-8 and fruit juices. Make sure they are 100% pure juice no water added and no sugar. There’s not much more you can say about water other than it is the most essential nutrient the body needs. You can go without food for two to four weeks but less than week without water. Watch others to make sure they are not becoming dehydrated. It is possible when under stress to not drink for days. Sometimes the longer you go without drinking, the less thirsty you become. So watch each other for the life-threatening medical symptoms of dehydration. Shock due to dehydration is often fatal as one or more organs fail and cannot be “restarted”.

As an aside for cooking if you can go outdoors and smells drifting long distances won’t be a problem, consider buying a solar cooker. Most are not that expensive if you a buy simple one and simple is all you need. A solar cooker is nothing more than a parabolic (look it up) dish (shaped like an aluminum saucer sled) that concentrates the sun at a single focal point or a box that works on a similar principal. Even a three foot wide TV satellite dish can boil water or cook eggs on sunny days when pointed at the sun. Most sporting goods stores carry solar cookers as do a hundred plus Internet retail Web sites. Don’t go overboard with “fancy”. Buy three basic solar cookers instead of one fancy version that does the same exact job just with gadgets like electronic thermometers and so forth. Three solar cookers can have your food hot and coffee and tea warm for as long as there is sunlight as they do not wear out. While you’re surveying solar cookers at your local sporting goods store check out all the other gadgets you never thought existed. You may enter looking for a solar cooker but exit with a SUV-load of survival items you didn’t know you needed but are all going to make your “stealth time” oh so much easier!

Almost every item in this book has been bought, tested and is approved by the author that it will do the job it is intended for. For the few items I’ve not been able to test, I try to include that in my writing. Yes, I have the standard yada yada legal boiler plate words that I nor the publisher are responsible for telling you what time of day it is but I REALLY have worked hard to make this book complete, accurate and useful. But no one is perfect (especially me) so I’d appreciate feedback if you catch anything incorrect, omitted or written incorrectly. If an item is so interesting but not untested I may include it but let you take your chances if you want to buy it. One such item I just purchased is the “Candelier 3 candle holder and cooker for sale from
http://www.preparedness.com/canlan.html
What a great buy for the money! And this looks like it can do some basic cooking as well. I bought five sets of extra candles. Besides windup lights (your Kaito emergency radio has three types of lights plus a low power output jack for charging your cell phone – as if your cell phone stands a chance of working in an emergency!) and long lasting low power usage LED lights and long lasting candles are great ways to avoid sitting in pitch black darkness every night before bedtime. Keep in mind all the caveats of cooking! Eating something cooked every so often will sure break up the monotony of nothing but (still edible and nutritious) cold food for weeks on end.

FOOD

Barring a medical problem or other unforeseen situation basic survival for a 100% healthy person consists of enough water, “properly balanced” diet of food (what that balance is you find fought over even between government dietary and medical agencies) but let’s assume you have it “about right” and a defensive space to hide with enough fresh air to breath and not get sick. Sounds simple and it is if you’re truly hidden, truly have plenty of pure water and truly have that well balanced diet in quantity and in a form that won’t spoil. And you’re a 22 year-old who has never been sick a day in his or her life. Their immune system to fight off germs is off the charts.

Now for the rest of us, as I say, water comes first. The human body begins to shut down at three days without water with death probably by the tenth day. But some deprived of water for various reasons (i.e. war, lost in the desert, etc.) have survived as long as a month but usually with permanent kidney and/or other organ damage. But, keep “safe water” as number one on your supplies list remembering “three days”. I’ve seen all kinds of complicated water filtration systems, drinking sewer water that has been strained then “super water pills” (often straight chlorine) added and even a recent addition of a device that pulls humidity out of the air selling for $1,400. No one stops to think this is just a high powered dehumidifier available at the “big box” stores for under $150. Two or three of three set on high will pull the seven gallons of water from the air the $1,400 device does. Unfortunately, the unit as well as the regular dehumidifiers requires hundreds of watts of 110 VAC of 60 Hertz electricity to function. See the chapter on “Stealth”. You’re trying to be quiet as a mouse but you have to run your gasoline powered generator to generate power for any type of dehumidifier (the $1,400 one or just cheap Walmart ones) and have to add gallons of gasoline to the generator every six hours or so. The list of unusual ways to “gather” water could fill a chapter.

Food can be as complicated as you want it to be. You can plan for a five course gourmet meal every night with the finest wines and so forth or you can plan to have food that will provide basic (but healthy) survival but no more. This book takes option number two. First of all, consult on-line dietary Web sites. The government ones are good only because they argue with each other and meals somewhere in the middle are probably most accurate. Before I forget, don’t forget baby food or read up on baby food and learn how to turn adult food into baby food. As a parent feeding a one-year old spicy adult food – well, you and the baby will regret it for days. As a father left alone with a one-year old I learned the hard way. Both father and son survived. Mom did too except for brief stretch marks from laughing so hard.

My suggestion is plan on “regular” food for three to six months. If you can’t buy it at Super Walmart, don’t buy it. Follow the government’s recommended “servings” but cut them by half at first. The servings are so large you’ll put on 20 pounds. One goal should be to emerge in six months having eaten better than you ever had (of food that may taste like a brick and cardboard but it is nutritious and eating 1200 to 1800 calories a day you’ll lose that 30 pounds you’ve tried to lose for 20 years. Make eating a challenge to become healthier! After you’ve exhausted your three to six months of regular food then it is time to switch to 3600 calorie ER survival food bars. Amazon sells them for $3.85 each, less for quantity. I own 120 of them. I also own ones for cats and dogs. Each bar (I call them bricks as they weigh as much as a brick and are as hard as a brick). Each breaks into nine 400 calorie squares. Let each one melt in your mouth. Three (1200 calories will last all day). The package lists all the vitamins and minerals and it says “contains all the body needs to survive”. Just in case include a very large bottle of multi-vitamins and everyone should take one pill each day.