Vancouver "boil the water" warning

W

Will

Joined
Jan 4, 2003
Messages
659
Due to a recent storm, they issued a boil the water warning. No bactieria has been found in the water, or problems reported, it is just a precautionary thing.

Non the less, everyone is sold out of bottled water, and people have stopped buying coffe at the local coffee shops. WOW, people really overreact. The water for coffee is boiled, isn't it? These days it seems people ONLY drink bottled water anyway, so I am surprized at the increased demand for it. I guess it is just the panic mode everyone gets in, so they go to the store and clear out the shelves. Kinda shows how illprepared the average citizen is. I guess it also makes us realize how dependant we are the "grid".

I have several bottels of water for emergency here, but I have tablets, and stoves I can use boil if the power goes out, so non of this puts me off.

(this is where I go off topic a bit)

When I was kid, some of friends laughed at my family because my parents kept our house fully stocked with food, fire wood, and general supplies/toiletries etc. Back in the 90's we had an ice storm and lost power for over a week in winter. Of course we have camping gear, but also had a fully stocked house. We were fine for the week. no one laughed at us.

Now I live alone in an appartment, and I always keep at least several weeks fo supplies here, Toiletries, batteries, basic hardwear, and so on. NOt only being preapred for a disaster, but simple things, like being too busy to get out of the house and go shopping one weekend. Living alone, becoming sick or injured is another concern. If I broke my leg, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere for month. I would hate to run out of soap or toilet paper. I keep ahead the same way with laundry. Instead of waiting till all my clothes are dirty to wash them, I do laundry as soon as I have enough for a full load, which is long before I actually NEED to do one. That way if the machines break, or power or water shut down or whatever, it doesn't put me off much.

Being prepared this way doesn't cost more, or take any extra time. I guess lots of people feel it is only paranoid survivalists that think this way, but it just makes so much sense to me, why wouldn't people want to think ahead a bit, and be prepared for little things?

Will
 
Hey Will,

I heard about the 'boil water' advisory on the news. It sounds like it won't be a problem for you. You seem quite prepared. As far as, "I guess lots of people feel it is only paranoid survivalists that think this way", WHO CARES?
Sorry, didn't mean to shout. :D

Doc
 
Many years ago I essentially lived alone in a rented house in the mountains (nominally the house's owner was also my room mate, but he was shacking up with a girl in San Francisco so I never actually saw him around). The place that I lived was well-over and hour away from where I worked. Also, I hadn't been living in the house for very long so I hadn't had time to meet anyone in that town.

That winter, a major storm came through that knocked out power and the telephones. At the same time I came down with the worst case of the flu that I've ever experienced. All of a sudden, I was too weak to even get in my truck and drive the 15 minutes down into town for groceries.

So. No power, no heat except for what I could do with a small wood burning stove in the house, extremely sick, no one around to help, low on supplies, and no telephones. I learned a lot about just how quickly we can become isolated and in trouble. In the end, I came through it okay, but that's probably because I was 33 at the time and in top physical shape, plus I can build a fire in my sleep.

There is never anything foolish about being survival minded, let me tell you.

Sorry, just had to throw that out there.

Switching topics, we're encouraged to store water against the threat of earthquakes here in California. People are often telling me that they have the water but they keep forgetting to rotate it. I'm wondering if a water purification system might not help in that event. Having done a little research, I stumbled onto this system:

http://www.hydrationtech.com/

It's some kind of an osmosis purification system that promises to clean water no matter how dirty it is. Does anyone have any experience with it? It looks pricey, but might be worth keeping around just in case (unfortunately, it only has a 3 year shelf life.)
 
Costco, 15L jugs of water under $3. Couple of those in a safe place and you're good. Reverse osmosis is expensive, but if used properly, can treat most any water. Depends how long you expect to be dry. For $100 you can have 500L of water, clean and semi portable at need. Shelf life of water in plastic? No sure, but 2 to 3 years I am sure. Even after that, in an emergency situation, it is useable.
 
RLR said:
Costco, 15L jugs of water under $3. Couple of those in a safe place and you're good. Reverse osmosis is expensive, but if used properly, can treat most any water. Depends how long you expect to be dry. For $100 you can have 500L of water, clean and semi portable at need. Shelf life of water in plastic? No sure, but 2 to 3 years I am sure. Even after that, in an emergency situation, it is useable.
Click to expand...

Red Cross says that the shelf life of water in plastic (NOT clear plastic such as most bottled water comes in) is 6 months:

http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/beprepared/foodwtr.html

You can treat water with bleach for storage if you like, but opinions differ as to whether it's necessary. The Red Cross claims that if you're using commerically treated water (such as comes out of your tap, if you're on "city water"), treating it doesn't extend its shelf life. Other, random, resources around the web suggest treating it anyway with bleach so as to kill off any lingering organisms that might have existed in your container prior to you using it for water storage.

Personally, I like to set up electronic calendar reminders to rotate my water and that works well for me. But I'm pretty sure that if the SHTF, I'm going to find out about all the people around here who stored water in 1990 and then never looked at it again.
 
Yeah, these are marked into 2008 (I checked)... but the chemical leaching versus thirst factor will come into play during a lengthy emergency.
 
whoa... i didn't realize there are a few fellow BC'ers on this forum too! yea... I'm here in Vancouver, and they've lifted the advisory for surrounding suburban areas, but not here yet. The water that comes out of the taps is brownish. At times like these, I'm glad I have my camping water filter =). Just need to fill up the sink, give the dirt a couple hours to settle, then pump away into storage containers. As the scouts say, Be Prepared!
 
"Back in the 90's we had an ice storm and lost power for over a week in winter"

i think i remember this storm. back then we went to my grandparent's house and had a fire burning all the time in their fire place. we made a little ice box out of snow on the back porch for our milk and stuff. we weren't really prepared, but we got through
 
luckily here in mission we have a different resevoir.
However I called the Fraser Region Health autority on friday. The coffee makers we use at work have a resevoir and heat the water to 190 F. The health inspector said that this was sufficient to kill the coli forms and would be safe to drink.

For myself I always have bottled water at home plus water treatment tablets plus a portable filter that is intended for use for untreated water (supposidly I could use it safely in third world counties and be safe)

had to laugh on the north shore CKNW was giving away free water because the stores were sold out

We had no power at my place for about a day, but lots of candles, gas fireplace downstairs and wood fireplace upstairs and we were quite comforatable.
 
Will,
You were raised well. Like you said, it doesn't cost anymore, nor take anymore effort to be prepared. They say buying in bulk saves money in the long run. Why buy 2 rolls of TP when you can just get the case and be done with it for up to a year?

For at-home water issues, you could still use a regular Back-packer filter, like PUR/Katadyn or MSR.

For a stationary location I like the looks and price of this one:
http://www.ruggedsportsman.com/catalog.php?id=53949
I'm naturally lazy, so, why not let gravity do the work?
Life is too short to pump those little handles.

Filters up to 200 gallons. Not bad. Decent price. Uses the same filter as the Hiker Pro, so they are readily available at any backpacking supply shop.

You wouldn't be filtering mucky, junky water, most likely clean tap water, that is "suspect". For that matter, nothing wrong with boiling or chlorinating.

If you wanted an 'install it and forget system', and you are on a municipal system, install a well pump pressure chamber. Those blue domed things that have a bladder inside. Pipe it into your water system and place a check-valve on the incoming side of your piping. You can store 20, 30 or 40 gallons of water, in your house, it's always being refreshed as you use your domestic water.
the one-way check valve ensures that if the municiple supply goes to zero pressure, your house system stays pressurized, meaning you have water in your system, rather than having it drain back into the city pipes.

make sure to install the pressure tank so that it can gravity feed, or at least that you can get a bottle or bucket underneath of it.
http://www.clearwatersystems.com/pressure_tank.php
 
All the reports show that they have not found any coli-forms in the water.
They say tomorrow we may have another rain storm so the boild water advisory may be re-instituted for the whole gvrd again
 
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