Water storage

The water you store before the emergency is the best you will have: it needs no fuel, bleach, or filter. According to the CDC, unopened commercially bottled water is the safest and most reliable source in an emergency. Properly stored tap water is almost as good and much cheaper. What matters is the container, how you fill it, where you store it, and that you rotate it.

Commercial water or water you bottle yourself

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Recommended combination: jugs for the large volume at home, and a few packs of commercial bottles for the bags, the car, and the first days (they can be handed out without opening the jugs).

Suitable containers

• Food-grade (FDA-approved for food or drinking water). They are sold at camping stores, emergency supply stores, and online. If you don't know whether a container is food-grade, ask the manufacturer (CDC).
• HDPE plastic: look for the recycling triangle with the number 2 and the letters HDPE. It is the material of most blue water jugs. Careful: the number 2 only tells you what plastic it is, not that it is safe for food; also look for the label "food grade" or "for drinking water."
• A lid that seals well and, preferably, a narrow mouth or a spigot (tap) for pouring without putting your hands in (CDC).
• Sturdy, unbreakable material (CDC): no glass.
• Opaque or colored, or stored in the dark: light encourages algae growth.

5–7 Gallon jugs or 55-gallon drums?

A gallon of water weighs about 8.3 lb (3.8 kg). Do the math before you buy:

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Floor load. The residential code (IRC) designs home floors for a distributed load of 40 lb per square foot in living areas and 30 in bedrooms. A 55-gallon drum concentrates about 480 lb on a base of about 3 square feet: more than 150 lb per square foot. On a ground floor over a concrete slab (typical in many buildings) that weight goes straight into the ground and is not a problem. On upper wood-frame floors, don't place drums without consulting an engineer, and even with jugs, spread the weight among several rooms. Also check your lease: some complexes limit water-filled objects (aquariums, waterbeds).

Which containers NOT to use

• Milk or juice jugs: they break down, leak over time, and retain protein and sugar residues where bacteria grow (Utah State University Extension). Containers that held chemicals: bleach, pesticides, oil, antifreeze, solvents (CDC). Never.
• Glass: it breaks from a knock, a tremor, or if the water freezes (the CDC asks for unbreakable material).
• Containers that are not food-grade: hardware-store buckets, trash cans, gasoline cans (even if new), cleaning-product jugs.

How to clean and sanitize a container (CDC)

1. Wash the container with water and dish soap, and rinse it thoroughly.
2. Prepare the solution: 1 teaspoon of unscented liquid household bleach (with 5–9% sodium hypochlorite) in 1 quart (4 cups, 0.95 L) of water.
3. Pour the solution into the container, cap it, and shake it so it wets all the interior surfaces, including the inside of the lid.
4. Wait at least 30 seconds and pour out the solution.
5. Let it air dry, upside down on a clean cloth, or fill it right away.

How to Fill It

1. Use drinking water. If it is chlorinated municipal water, fill it straight from the tap: it already has residual chlorine and needs no additional treatment (as water utilities such as San Francisco's SFPUC and Utah State University Extension indicate).
2. If the water comes from a well or an unchlorinated source, disinfect it before storing it using the bleach table in this chapter (8 drops per gallon of 6% bleach, 6 drops for 8.25%) and wait 30 minutes.
3. Fill from the kitchen tap. Don't use an ordinary garden hose: it isn't made for drinking water. If you need a hose, it should say "drinking water safe" (the kind made for RVs).
4. Don't touch the inside of the container, the mouth, or the inside of the lid with your fingers.
5. Fill it to the top (unless you're going to freeze it), close it tightly, and dry the outside.

Label and rotate

• Label each container: "DRINKING WATER" and the fill date (CDC). Use a permanent marker or painter's tape.
• Water you bottled yourself: replace it every 6 months (CDC, Ready.gov). Do it when the clocks change, in March and November, along with the kit check (chapter 2).
• Commercial water: respect the expiration date (CDC). Use the oldest first and replace it.
• Don't throw out old water: use it for watering plants, washing, or the toilet. Then sanitize the container and refill it. When using it in an emergency, serve it with the spigot or a clean ladle; never put your hands in (CDC).
• If stored water looks cloudy, looks green, or smells bad, don't drink it: use it for the toilet.

Where to store it

• Cool: the CDC recommends between 50 and 70 °F (10–21 °C), out of direct sunlight.
• Away from toxics: gasoline, pesticides, cleaning products, paint (CDC). Plastic lets vapors through and the water takes on their taste.
• Inside your home, in interior closets with air conditioning. Never on the patio, balcony, outdoor patio storage room, garage, or car: in summer they get much hotter than the interior.
• Spread out in several places, so a single leak, flood, or damage doesn't leave you with nothing.
• Kept off the floor by a board, a plastic pallet, or a low shelf (see the box).

Maintenance in the heat

• The enemy isn't time, it's heat and light: the water takes on a plastic taste, thin bottles warp, and lids can loosen. Check each jug when you rotate it: leaks, bulging, cracks, loose lid. Replace any that are damaged.
• Bottles in the car get very hot in the cabin: replace them more often than the ones at home (chapter 2).
• In a summer outage your home or apartment will heat up: nothing happens to the sealed reserve over a few days; use it normally.
• If you leave your home or apartment empty in summer with the air conditioning off, the reserve suffers: don't turn the air off completely; raise the temperature setting.

Bathtub liner bag (WaterBOB type) and filling the tub

When there is a warning of a winter storm, a hurricane, or water outages, fill the bathtub. It is the fastest way to get dozens of extra gallons.

• Bathtub liner bag: a large food-grade plastic bag that is placed inside the tub and filled from the tap. According to the manufacturer of the WaterBOB model, it holds up to 100 gallons (379 L), is emptied with an included hand pump, the water stays fresh for up to 16 weeks depending on temperature, and the bag is single-use. The water in the bag is for drinking.
• How to use it: clean the tub, spread out the bag, fill with cold water, close the bag's lid, and pump the water into clean containers as you need it.
• Tub without a bag: the tub is not food-grade and is almost never perfectly clean. Use that water for the toilet and hygiene; if you have to drink it, treat it first. Check that the stopper doesn't leak: fill it and check an hour later.
• Also fill pots with lids, collapsible water jugs, and clean empty bottles.
• Careful: a full tub is a drowning risk for small children. Close the bathroom door and watch the dogs.

Freezing water

• Keep some containers of drinking water in the freezer: in an outage they help keep food cold and, when they melt, they are drinking water (Utah State University Extension).
• Leave at least 10% empty space: water expands about 9% in volume when it freezes and can burst the container.
• Use plastic bottles or jugs, never glass.
• A full freezer holds the cold longer than a half-empty one: fill the gaps with water bottles.

Storage plan for your home

This plan is an example of how to distribute the 14-day base reserve from chapter 2 (14 gallons per person, plus water for pets). The example is calculated for a household of 4 people and 2 small pets (~62 gallons), with 12 five-gallon jugs, plus commercial bottles that complete the total and are used in the bags. Adjust the amounts and locations to your household and the layout of your home or apartment.

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• For extreme heat (28 gallons per person over 14 days, chapter 2), the base plus the bathtub liner bag cover the difference: fill it as soon as there is a warning.
• Equipment: spigot for the jug (1 or 2), funnel, ladle, 1 gallon of unscented bleach and a dropper (chapter 2), labels and marker, boards or pallets.
• Each closet carries about 170 lb on about 4 square feet: no problem on a concrete slab on the ground floor.
• When you rotate, do it in groups (one closet per week) so you are never without a reserve.