Recommended amount of water in bug-out-bag?

[John3754 0]

I've been reading the recommendations about what to keep in your bug out bag.  One of the recommendations is "Enough food and water to last for 72 hours", and they say that you should have 1 gallon of water per person per day.

 

So...if i were preparing a bag for my wife and myself, that would mean I'm supposed to have 6 gallons of water in my bug out bag?!  What kind of stupid recommendation is this?

[Recon Racoon 49]

They don't mean 6 gallon jugs. Think like 1 liter bottle or camel back, and a water filter or water purification tablets or drops.

 

If you're looking at filters, katadyn and life straw are pretty big names with preppers.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[A-Tech 8]

Lol, no..you should definitely carry 6 gallons of water. I'm sure the extra 48lbs is no big deal.

I have a water purification straw and potable tablets that I combine with kool-aid single serve packets. Flavor + vitamin C helps with the idodine taste.

[94dak 0]

there are ways to accomplish this without carrying 6 gallons of water, have a couple of the larger skinny bottles in your pack, also helps a pack keep its shape, and have more water stashed in vehicles(also helps in an overheating situation), at the workplace etc, don't really have to carry that much on your person, plus have a way to sterilize water you may find along the way to wherever, like a life straw, etc

[High Exposure 5,664]

Also, if it's for two people there should be two bags. Every adult carries their own load and supplies and equipment should be shared/split. Of you carry everything and something happens to you, then what?

[A-Tech 8]

Also, if it's for two people there should be two bags. Every adult carries their own load and supplies and equipment should be shared/split. Of you carry everything and something happens to you, then what?

This is very often overlooked. I even thought this when I first started making my emergency packs. I thought I was all macho and would have my wife carry the sammiches or whatever. Turns out she is capable of carrying her own stuff, and none of my sammiches. She has her own pack with supplies and sustenance that tool a tremendous load off my back (literally)

[ElmerFudd 0]

Having a single large camelback (3 liters) should be enough to get you a fair distance.  I've tried to drink conservatively and done around 30 miles of mountain hiking and trail running with just 2 liters so that much was doable.  

 

It's definitely more important to have a way to clean and purify a natural source.  Your stores should be enough to get you to a water source without without weighing enough to hinder your movement.  

[Vlad G 345]

Also estimates and volumes are greatly bullshit. If I'm exercising even mildly in warm weather I use HUGE quantities of fluids to stay on my feet. On a summer hike I need at least 1gal ever 5-8 miles or I start dehydrating. A summer USPSA match, I go through 2+ gallons of fluids.   My wife on the other hand can be on the same hike as me and she'll drink up a quart or so and be perfectly fine.

 

Independent of how much liquid you can carry (and it isn't much) you should really have a pretty good idea how my liquid you need for yourself under different levels of exertion and plan accordingly. 

[Malsua 1,422]

The first thing you need to do is figure out exactly where you are bugging out to because it seems to me you've confused a bug out bag with disaster preparation.

 

A bug out bag is to get you from wherever you might be to somewhere that you have supplies and shelter.  

 

Your shelter should have sufficient water for 72 hours or more, your bug out bag should have enough to get you there.

 

Furthermore, much of the stuff you read about carrying and storing water comes from people who live in arid climates.   We do not have a water shortage in this region so having small quantity of water and a good filter in your BOB is a superior choice.   There are lakes and streams everywhere.

 

Finally, what most of us really need are "get home bags".    You are out and about when something bad happens.   The chances of any of us needing to "head to the hills" is vanishingly remote and besides...what are you going to do when you get there?  Sit in the leaves and eat a power bar?  You are much better off sheltering in place unless the place is gone due to fire, flood, terror, whatever and in that case, it's only a local thing and there's a hotel to go to somewhere.

 

If there is a Meteor strike or nuclear war, your BOB isn't going to make much of a difference.

[raz-0 1,259]

actual packaged water, go more with survival numbers than with numbers to maintain some semblance of function. 1 liter per day is usually considered basic replacement for sitting still and breathing. Some mystery doctor says 8 cups a day (advice is everywhere , nobody knows where it came from), so that's 2 liters. You want to wash and prep food you'll need more. Plan to be hoofing it on foot, you'll need more. 

[mipafox 438]

 

This is very often overlooked. I even thought this when I first started making my emergency packs. I thought I was all macho and would have my wife carry the sammiches or whatever. Turns out she is capable of carrying her own stuff, and none of my sammiches. She has her own pack with supplies and sustenance that tool a tremendous load off my back (literally)

I'm working under the assumption that I caught a gem from him that you missed. If, not, you can give me the credit.

 

Everybody carries what they need. But one person carries what everybody needs. We have 8 medical patches (or more) and turn-it kits, but we don't have 8 medical kits. We have 8 sets of rods, shell extractors, and CLP (yuck) but we don't have 8 sets of armorer's tolls. And certainly not 8 sets of that thing that makes it easy to take the handguards off P

 

The answer is you can't carry enough water. Water is a plan. You are talking to a guy who spent a year wandering around nowhere 1-2 weeks at a time with no resupply whatsoever. I have drunk mud. I have drunk live tadpoles 30 min after iodine tablets, and I can't explain that. Always have water but have sterilization or decon as well. Desserts - I don't know, no extended experience.

[Newtonian 453]

I've been thinking seriously about this topic. (I can hear y'all groaning).

 

Problem with carrying water is it's 8lbs/gallon. Even if you're a he-man you can only carry about 10 days worth at 2 quarts/day, assuming you're lugging a lot of other stuff. Geez that's already 40 lbs. Per person. And then what?

 

I suggest buying one of those portable ceramic filters that can turn diarrhea into safe, potable water. I've just purchased three. I'm going to try one this weekend with water from the pond behind my house. If I don't post next week you'll know why.

 

This way, as long as it's not colder than 15 degrees F or so for an extended period, all you need to do is pour and drink, or find a large rock to break the ice, collect, pour and drink.

 

These devices are reasonably priced ($20-40 each) and will filter out tadpoles and salamanders as well as anything down to 0.1 or even 0.05 microns. Literally thousands of gallons. If you're still filtering water by then well, you probably starved to death 6 months earlier.

[Vlad G 345]

We live in NJ so water is everywhere. Hell in most of NJ we run sump pumps. I know mine run with some degree of business 100 days a year or so.

 

 

I do think that boiling is not enough and owning good filters is very important because there isn't just the bio part there is also the chemical plant. We have lots of petrochemical industry, and lots of traffic and lots of shipping so you never know what makes its way in your water supply.

[mipafox 438]

We live in NJ so water is everywhere. Hell in most of NJ we run sump pumps. I know mine run with some degree of business 100 days a year or so.

 

I do think that boiling is not enough and owning good filters is very important because there isn't just the bio part there is also the chemical plant.

Boiling is not enough for bio. Temp doesn't get high enough.

 

Chemical contamination? If you can blow bubbles into it with a straw and the air that comes out doesn't smell like a dry cleaner or a gas station I think you are going to be OK. Chemical contamination should be your least concern if you are getting waters from the State rivers or aquifers. I would only worry about chemicals if you had reason to when you showed up.

[Vlad G 345]

There is more to contamination then something you can smell. Heavy metals, arsenic, etc. There are a heck of a lot of contaminated sites, living in Sayreville I have the Raritan a short walk away, but I also have 2 superfund sites in town and a scenic garbage dump on the other side of the river: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_New_Jersey

 

Most biologicals are destroyed by boiling, (https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/water/drinking/boilwater/response_information_public_health_professional.htm) but on the other hand boiling concentrates chemical contamination, which is why it is probably wise to filter AND boil, in that order. Most viruses, unlike the huge Ebola one, are small enough that they might escape 0.01 micron filters

 

I suppose ultimately a still would be the right answer.

[Respect2A 0]

Don't forget that due to the geniuses/thieves in the soda industry we have bottled water Literally everywhere. You can't go into a food store anymore without seeing at least 50% of the shoppers toting out a case of water or two. Gas stations sell it by the case.

 

Bugging out I don't think you need more than a few bottles. It's when you get to where you are planning to stay that you need to think about.

[Newtonian 453]

If it reaches the point where you're running away from home and you have to get somewhere by foot, how far do you think you'll get from whatever it is you're running away from, and everyone else running for the hills? By the time you get to your bugout location don't you think others had the same idea? "Gee this is a nice little cabin."

 

So unless you're bugging out to a place with running water you're eventually going to need a water filter. Really, if it reaches the point where you have to strap water and sardines to your back do you think there'll be electricity? Eventually the water pumping stations will go down, and there'll be no juice to run the theoretical well at your bugout place.

 

Personally I think that bugging out is a formula for getting killed or dying of starvation. 

[CMJeepster 2,778]

Filter then boil.  (Keeps the junk out of your boilin' pot.)

[mipafox 438]

 

There is more to contamination then something you can smell. Heavy metals, arsenic, etc. There are a heck of a lot of contaminated sites, living in Sayreville I have the Raritan a short walk away, but I also have 2 superfund sites in town and a scenic garbage dump on the other side of the river: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_New_Jersey

 

Most biologicals are destroyed by boiling, (https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/water/drinking/boilwater/response_information_public_health_professional.htm) but on the other hand boiling concentrates chemical contamination, which is why it is probably wise to filter AND boil, in that order. Most viruses, unlike the huge Ebola one, are small enough that they might escape 0.01 micron filters

 

I suppose ultimately a still would be the right answer.

Heavy metals and arsenic are not very mobile in water with the exception of reducing conditions, such as negative ORP and low DO. This can happen in groundwater near landfills which contain a lot of organic material and therefore chemical oxygen demand. Mater of fact, most arsenic in NJ waters is naturally occurring and is often mobilized by uncontaminated municipal landfills. In surface waters they would only occur as salts (most of which are not soluble with these metals) or as turbidity, not dissolved phase because the ORP is too high in surface waters.

 

I didn't say it wasn't a concern, I said it should be your least concern unless you had reason for concern when you showed up to the location. Drinking water 10x the MCL for a week isn't going to kill you, or even shorten your life. Going without water for a week will. It sounds like, in your case, you think you have reason for concern when you show up in your area. I have cleaned up hazardous waste sites in Sayerville and I am working on at least one now. Perhaps it would be helpful to you to go online and check the extents of the groundwater plumes from those sites relative to your stomping grounds, as your surface waters in that area are "gaining":

 

http://www.nj.gov/dep/gis/geowebsplash.htm

 

Click on Launch Geoweb then click SRP Profile. Put in the address. Go into Human Health layers and turn on and make active "Classification Exception Areas." You will see the groundwater contamination plumes in your area. With that layer active, clicking on one will bring up the chemicals and concentrations in the plume. You can also make "KCSL" (known contaminated sites list) layer active and click on sites to get information about them. If you play with it a bit, you can also get regional background (natural) groundwater quality data and other things.

 

Boiling water will not increase the concentration of contamination in the water. I guess if you reduced the volume of the water by half you might double the concentration, but there is no reason to do that since a sterilization cycle of about 10 minutes is pretty much the best you are going to get at 212°F. Similarly, distilling may not do much if you are dealing with organics and don't get a enough transfer units or have azeotropes. In the case of some extremely bad things, such as Vinyl Chloride Monomer (daughter product from dry cleaner contamination) you can INCREASE the contamination in the distillate.

 

If you believe water is contaminated with biological material, and you have to drink it, and your only means of disinfection is heat sterilization, put it in a pressure cooker. 212°F may be good enough for giardia and some other natural things at common environmental concentrations but it is not even good enough for all disease causing bacteria found in human-contaminated water. There is a reason pressurized steam is used for sterilization cycles, and it applies to constituents of human race. Again - it depends on the challenge you are expecting. Just a heads-up, and a practical one (not fanciful) that boiling water is not safe treatment for all bio challenges you may face.

[Vlad G 345]

I'm curious, specifically which bio-contaminates need high temp boiling?

 

I'm not disagreeing with anything you are saying BTW, and I've played with the geoweb tool before. Plus there is always runoff from various areas, and Bacon knows how many leaking oil tanks in the ground. 

 

I'm not actually that paranoid about this, but I'm pretty sure that taking the first filter then boil approach would take care of most issues and combinations of issues, so if you are dealing with unknown quality water and you have the means it is probably the simplest/safest solution. 

[Newtonian 453]

Filter then boil.  (Keeps the junk out of your boilin' pot.)

If the filter frit is fine enough you don't have to boil. That's the advantage of filters.

 

What if there's nothing to boil with? No electricity, no fuel. That's the advantage of filters.

[Vlad G 345]

I know but ... if you have a $100+ filter but you don't have a way to make fire I feel you have somehow failed

[A-Tech 8]

Wait, there was fire before electricity? No way

[CMJeepster 2,778]

If the filter frit is fine enough you don't have to boil. That's the advantage of filters.

 

What if there's nothing to boil with? No electricity, no fuel. That's the advantage of filters.

Sure, but if we're blasted back to the stoneage, I'm doing both.  http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Water-Filter-in-the-Wild

[Newtonian 453]

Sure, but if we're blasted back to the stoneage, I'm doing both.  http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Water-Filter-in-the-Wild

Seriously, the filter in your link is good for removing rather large contaminants like crickets. It's the stuff you can't see that gets you.

[Newtonian 453]

I know but ... if you have a $100+ filter but you don't have a way to make fire I feel you have somehow failed

The filters are less than $50, some less than $30. Fire schmire. Why count on being able to make fire when you don't have to? Are you trying to survive or get a bit part in a cave man movie?

[Vlad G 345]

The filters are less than $50, some less than $30. Fire schmire. Why count on being able to make fire when you don't have to? Are you trying to survive or get a bit part in a cave man movie?

 

Well ... That makes it very hard to actually collect water, so yeah the straw types are cheaper, but far less flexible. Secondly that is 0.05 which is more of a filter then a purifier, which again its fine for most things, but mostly I think the 0.02 - 0.01 filter/purfiers are the answer if you are going to spend money on a last ditch, the zombies are pissing in my water bucket kinda stuff. 

[CMJeepster 2,778]

Seriously, the filter in your link is good for removing rather large contaminants like crickets. It's the stuff you can't see that gets you.

It was just one example of an extreme scenario.  Personally, I take a multi-layer approach to this topic.  I carry water in my primary vehicle along with physical filters (2 different types) as well as water purification tablets.  I also have at least 3 different ways to make fire.  I'm a belt and suspenders type of guy.

[Newtonian 453]

It was just one example of an extreme scenario.  Personally, I take a multi-layer approach to this topic.  I carry water in my primary vehicle along with physical filters (2 different types) as well as water purification tablets.  I also have at least 3 different ways to make fire.  I'm a belt and suspenders type of guy.

IMO if you can still drive around in a car then you're not in a survival situation. Hell, right now, today, we could just drive the van to the Delaware Water Gap and camp out for a month. But if it comes down to carrying water and sardines in a backpack you will not be driving anywhere. The roads will be clogged with abandoned cars, and desperate people will be looking to rob and eat you. A scenario like that could occur within a matter of weeks, even days. 

 

As far as that stupid-ass filter in the link (no reflection on you), you might as well save your time and not filter. Just drink the pond water and live with diarrhea or parasites until the Good Lord comes for you. 

 

I'm thinking of bug-in situations that combine three shifts of guarding the neighborhood with neighbor participation, enough stored food for a couple of months, and minimal reliance or expectation for the utilities we now take for granted. If the water keeps flowing and it's clean we'll drink it (we have a microscope, stains, and microbiology know-how); if not we'll filter water from the pond. If the electricity keeps flowing we'll continue cooking; if not we'll use propane stores and/or wood until it runs out, with game until it's extinct, and only then turn to canned goods.

[CMJeepster 2,778]

The O.P. was looking for B.O.B. options.  :pioneer:   I have my previously-stated options in my B.O.B. in my vehicle for if I need to leave it and proceed on foot.  My first priority would then be to get home.  If I'm at home, I've got filtering options there that are meant to be used and stay there.  If I need to leave home, I've got options for that scenario as well.  See where I'm going with this?

 

Also, having MacGyver-like knowledge gives you options for when that store-bought filter fails, breaks or gets lost.  Options, options, options.