How to Store Water for Emergencies: The Hardest Part of Preparing

People ask me all the time where they should start with preparedness. Food gets most of the attention, and fuel and light come up a lot too. But I'll tell you plainly: of everything in food storage and preparation, the hardest thing of all is water.

You can go a long time without food. You can't go long without water. And water is heavy, bulky, and fussy. It has to be stored the right way or it goes bad on you. So let's talk about how to get it done.

Start With a Couple of Weeks

The first thing you need is at least a couple of weeks' worth of water. Plan on a minimum of one gallon per person per day.

I want to be honest with you about that number. One gallon is a minimum. It's going to be very hard to live on one gallon a day once you account for what you need to drink and what you need to cook with. Washing up, cleaning dishes, and keeping yourself and your family clean all take water too. If you can store more than a gallon per person per day, do it.

But let's just use a gallon to keep the math simple. Thirty gallons gives one person about a month. Multiply that by everyone in your house and you start to see why water is such a challenge.

Water Is Heavy

A gallon of water weighs about 8.3 pounds. That doesn't sound like much until you start adding it up. Thirty gallons, one month for one person, comes to roughly 250 pounds.

A full 55-gallon drum weighs well over 400 pounds, about 460. You are not going to move that once it's filled. So if you go with drums, put them where you want them before you fill them, and get yourself a good drum pump so you can actually get the water out when you need it.

I store a lot of my water in 330-gallon totes. A full tote weighs well over a ton, somewhere around 2,750 pounds. That means it needs a solid, level base underneath it. Don't set one on soft ground or a shaky platform and hope for the best.

Choosing the Right Containers

The material you store your water in matters. Use food-grade containers made for drinking water. There are lots of good BPA-free plastic options out there in every size.

Glass is actually the best material for storing water. The trouble is that it's also the most fragile. One bump, one earthquake, one dropped box, and it's gone. So most of us end up with plastic, and that's fine as long as it's the right kind.

Here are the main options, from small to large:

• Gallon jugs and small food-grade containers that are easy to carry
• Stackable 5- to 7-gallon water containers
• 55-gallon drums, which need a pump
• 330-gallon totes, which need a solid, level base

A mix of sizes works well. The big containers hold your bulk supply. The small ones are what you'll actually carry to the kitchen, and what you can grab if you have to leave.

Treating Your Water So It Lasts

Stored water has to be properly purified. You can do that with chlorine or with other products made for the job.

The one I like to use is called Purogene. It's a chlorine dioxide treatment marketed for long-term water storage, and it's made so your water can last up to five years and still taste good, as long as you keep it out of sunlight and store it right. Whatever you use, follow the directions on the label for the amount and keep track of when you treated each container.

Where and How to Store It

Where you put your water is just as important as what you put it in. These are the rules I follow:

• Keep it out of sunlight. Light lets algae grow inside the container.
• Keep it off concrete. Set containers on wood, pallets, or another barrier rather than directly on the slab.
• Don't let it freeze. Freezing can split containers and ruin your supply.
• Keep it away from chemicals and fuel. Don't store water next to gasoline, paint, pesticides, or cleaners. Plastic can pick up odors and contaminants from what's around it.

On freezing, here's my own experience. With my totes, I leave the top 10% empty so the water has room to expand. I've had nights here down in the teens, and none of my totes have frozen. That's what has worked for me where I live. It's not a guarantee. Your climate, how exposed your containers are, and how long the cold lasts all make a difference, so think it through for your own situation.

Watch Out for Algae

If you store water outside, you have to be sure no sunlight gets to it. Sunlight is what lets algae grow inside the container.

Once your water has algae in it, it's no good for drinking. Don't take the chance. It isn't something you want your family drinking. At that point it becomes gray water, which you can still use for flushing the toilet or similar jobs, but you can't drink it anymore. That's a hard loss when you've hauled and stored hundreds of gallons, so protect it from light from the beginning.

Make a Plan

The best way to get your arms around water storage is to sit down and figure out exactly what your family needs. The free Family Planner on this site covers water along with fuel, heat, light, and the other things people tend to forget. Put in the number of people in your household and how long you want to plan for, and it will lay it out for you. There's no sign-up, and nothing you enter is ever saved.

Once your water is underway, take a look at how much food storage you need and how you'll cook and heat without power. Water is the foundation, but it's only the beginning.

A Thought to Carry With You

Of everything we store, water is the plainest reminder of how much we depend on things we didn't make ourselves. The scriptures speak often of living water, the kind that satisfies a thirst no barrel can reach. Store your gallons faithfully, one container at a time. And while you're doing it, make sure you're drawing daily from that other well too. When the taps run dry, both kinds of water will matter.