Two Words...

WEST VIRGINIA.

People giggle when I say I save H2O and store it in soda bottles around the kitchen. I have enough that the kitchen is overflowing with water in bottles. I have recently cleaned out my basement and intend on relocating my H2O stash to the empty shelves down there. I will save H2O in any empty soda or water bottle I find. I pick them up from work. Being the new year, a lot of fat chicks have jumped into the resolution of 'the new healthier skinnier me' idea and the bottles are easy to find. "Can I have that bottle when you're done with it?" And they give it to me. "Do you recycle, Jill?" I reply, "No, I'm gonna wash it out with soap and water then fill it up. I save it."
My end of the world preps are minimal. I buy a couple gallons every time I go to the dollar store. My food stock has dwindled, because the family eats my preps. I guess it's ok, but the family scoffs at my water preps. As empty bottles litter the kitchen floor like a recycling factory, they kick them aside. Dare they throw away my bottles, I will flip out. I also have to go through my kids trash cans before I throw the trash out as they just toss good empty water bottles. I don't pick them up off the street, nor do I put water in milk jugs or gatorade bottles. I find it's difficult to get the gatorade residual out of the bottle, the tatse and the odor of it is just eww. Milk jugs are for milk and I'd advise against that unless you're in a real pinch and very thirsty. But milk jugs are good for saving your old cooking oil that you can reuse for lighting if the grid goes down. I save that as well.
The water I have saved is good several months later. I don't think water goes bad, but technically they say that you're supposed to rotate the water you store. We have used 'old water for kool aid and juice.
Think about all the stuff you do with water and then spend a day without it. As evidenced by West Virginia, 300,000 people were and still are affected by that chemical oops into the water supply. It's been a little over a week now. so imagine not being able to feed your kid formula. It takes 8oz of water to mix with powdered formula. Imagine not being able to make at least a bag of oodles of noodles or a cup of soup or god forbid some coffee. All that requires a bit of water. Imagine not having 8oz of water at the very least. Think about bathing, those long hot showers out the window. A gallon of water that you could microwave to scrub up the lady parts would help immensely. West Virginia is only dealing with a water problem, now imagine the lights go out with it. Ugh, how much do you like living in the 18th century? How much water and food and lighting could you provide if you were without it for a week? Two weeks? I know I get pissy if I am without Wi-Fi for a while or even if it's a bad signal for a while.
I come from a generation that didn't have micowaves, remote controls, cable. Hell, we didn't AC when I was a kid. I remember Nan saving bacon fat on the stove in a jar. Hanging clothes outside on a line because we had no dryer. My parents grew up in a time with no vaccinations, no tv, no modern 21st century way of life. On a farm in what is now suburbia without a farm in sight.
Stories that people tell of going to the out house or walking to the well. That was only one generation ago for me. Two or even three for the kids walking around today on ipads and iphones.
Water...was the point. I heard about the water situation going on in WV and breathed a sigh of relief that if it were here in suburbia, Pa, that I would have enough water to eat and drink and get a bird bath and brush teeth. I have alcohol hand sanitizer stored. I have enough to have survived the water dilemma that is ongoing in WV, but I would be running low by now. Then there comes the rain and, bam, the water is restored.

Save your water. Even if it's in a 20 oz water bottle.
Google how to filter it and purify it so it won't make you sick when you need it. At least a little stash so you're not in the throngs of people who are without. It's a big world with little product. Think about it :)

Jill
1/14/2014