Thanks for stopping by in order to see
what I have to share with you today.
I’m always on the lookout for possible
improvements to my food storage and emergency preparedness that I can utilize in
order to better serve my family in any emergency.
I’ve watched probably hundreds of You Tube
(YT) videos in an effort to confirm the best methods to utilize for storing
water. I used that information that
others have shared and I have purchased several Seven Gallon Aquatainers, one for each
member of my family. That way, right off the bat, each
person has at least a week’s worth of water.
I also began saving and re-purposing two liter soda bottles and one gallon orange juice jugs (with
the built in handle), as well as many cases of 16.9 ounce sized commercially
bottled spring water.
I try to be the devil’s advocate on
storing re-purposed containers. In case
any one of them ever springs a leak, I have all of them that are filled stored inside
Rubbermaid bus trays that I bought from Sam’s Club for $12.98 for a bundle of
two. That way, I am covered for any
leaks since the water won’t damage anything because it is contained within the
Rubbermaid bus tray. An upside to that
is that not only do I not incur damage from the water, but the water itself would
be saved within the bus tray because the trays have the same six gallon
capacity as the total of the re-purposed containers stored within them.
I have seen a large number of people on YT
recommending that you store your re-purposed two liter soda bottles like they
do, which happens to be on their side to accommodate available space. I think that is asking for trouble. The cap on these bottles is the weakest link
and has the greatest potential for leakage.
The bottles really weren’t made for reusing, but everyone does it,
including me. Why would a person invite
trouble by laying them on their side?
That just doesn’t sound like a safe way to me, but that’s just my
opinion. If the bottles repeatedly get very
warm and then cool off, they could expand and contract and the caps could possibly
become loose. Remember, these aren’t
like the caps at the bottling plant where originally there is a plastic part of
the cap you have to break and twist off to get the soda out. Once a two liter bottle is opened, that cap
safety feature is gone forever. That
presents the potential, although admittedly a remote possibility, that a soda
bottle on its side could have the top work loose and if unchecked, leak out
about 2/3’s of its contents, until the water level reaches the lowest side of
the bottle’s spout while it is stored in the horizontal position.
I choose to store all my bottles and even
the Aquatainers in an upright position. This completely eliminates all possibilities
of leaks around the threads or spigots. My
personal preference is to err on the side of caution, so that’s why I do mine
this way. Besides, the aggravation of
water leaking onto the wood floor would be intense, so I would rather avoid it.
Another questionable area that I see
frequently on YT is the storing of emergency water in opaque plastic milk jugs. Snap top milk jugs or actual opaque one
gallon water jugs are being recommended by some folks to be good for storing
water. That plastic is not designed for
long term water storage. If you drop a
full one, it will pop the top off and splash everywhere, or just plain
burst. The older the jug is, the weaker
it becomes. Plastic milk jugs take 500
years to degrade when buried in a landfill, so they are not
“biodegradable”. The problem for using
milk jugs as water containers is that they ARE “photodegradable”, which means that exposure to light eventually breaks
down the plastic until it begins leaking and then ultimately fails. See:
When it comes to re-purposing containers, I
believe that only the very clear plastic containers such as juice jugs or 2
liter soda bottles should be used for emergency water storage. I will share with those reading this that
while I have a very substantial amount of drinking water stored, I also have
dozens of empty, clean, juice containers stacked and stored in large laundry baskets. If a hurricane is coming, I will fill these
containers at first notification of a probable landfall in my area. However, I will have to store them out on the
floor in an unused bedroom because my shelf space is currently filled to
capacity. That’s why I currently have
them empty, stacked in laundry baskets, stored where I wouldn’t store my water.
Another action that I see frequently is
the filling of 55 gallon blue plastic water storage barrels with a household
garden hose. There is a lot of bacteria
contained within a garden hose. That is one of the reasons that the water left sitting in a garden hose smells bad when you first use it. The hose
is used for everything from watering gardens to washing cars to washing the
dog. As the hose sits in the sun or
hangs with some water in it on a hose rack, the bacteria within just
multiplies. People should be using
special hoses like the ones used for RV’s for filling their water storage
barrels. Bad enough that there’s the
bacteria in the garden hose, but watch how many people drape the hose into the
water barrel and let the end of it become submerged in their stored drinking
water. Imagine the bird poop and
bacteria that this hose connection has been dragged through on the ground. It’s even worse if you have pets that use the
yard for their toilet. Now those germs
are in your emergency water supply. Who
wants to drink that?
The next item subject to my observation is
storing your emergency food supply in a hot, uninsulated attic or storage
shed. In my opinion, there is nothing
that could make me store my foods in that type of area. Temperature control is a major factor in the
length of shelf life of your foods. Rather
than store my foods in a hot attic, I would find places within my climate
controlled (or at least buffered from the heat by building materials) living
space to store my food. The temperature
in your living space is exactly the temperature range that you should usually
store your food in. Even if you don’t
have AC, your living space is nowhere near the attic temperature. Basically, I think that if your attic
temperature will kill you, it will kill the shelf life of your food storage.
Finally, I see people’s food storage
videos graciously sharing with us what
supplies they store in their preps.
Personally, I don’t store some of the food products that other folks do,
because of the high fat content in those foods.
Fats can go rancid and are not suitable for long term storage. Large quantities of cooking oils are one of
the storage items I see very frequently in these YT videos. Some folks have way over a dozen bottles of
cooking oil in their storage. Now in our
home, we hardly use cooking oil except for an infrequent baking project. So storing a large quantity of cooking oil
seems illogical for us. It is possible
that some folks that store gallons and gallons of cooking oil might actually
use it before it expires. Maybe they
deep fry a turkey for the holidays.
That’s good! That would use a lot
of the oil. Storing gallons of cooking
oil just doesn’t benefit our diet, so I only keep one or two bottles on
hand.
Something that that I recently became
aware of is using the sun’s ultraviolet rays and several two liter soda bottles
to make the water safe to drink. I think
this is pretty remarkable and these video links below should be watched by
anyone who wants to really ensure their water supply. I sincerely hope each visitor to this blog
watches all three videos in their entirety. The longest one is only ten minutes
and one second, but it shows you how well this works!
Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS)
SODIS is an alternative water treatment
method designed for use at the household level. The technology is simple in
terms of the procedure, yet effective in eliminating water borne related
pathogens. Please watch these short
videos on the subject:
In light of the above identified YT
videos, I have set aside two or three dozen two liter bottles as well as three
or four large mirrors from bedroom dressers to assist me in disinfecting water
when I need to do that. The mirrors
speed up the process. Next time you see
a bedroom dresser put out for bulk trash pickup, you may choose to stop and remove the mirror still in its frame, which is usually
held to the back of the dresser by two screws on each upright post, and take it
home for storage until you need it. It
doesn’t cost you anything but a few minutes of your time.
In summary, store what types of food you
normally eat or like, and make sure you have plenty of stored water, which is the
most important item, for any emergencies that come your way. You will be glad you did when the emergency
happens, and it will happen.
I hope what I have shared today provides
some food for thought for ensuring the success of your emergency storage plan.
Happy Prepping!
Bob Hotaling
