What will you do without water?

[KeptByTheWord]

We had a nasty storm come through our area Saturday evening (the second of two straight line wind storms here in less than 10 days). Many people in our area had just gotten power back on after being out for 6-7 days. Thankfully, we did not lose power or have any damages in the first storm. However, Saturday night, our power went out as a major transformer was taken down that supplied power to an area of 100 miles or more. Thousands of people are without power, and many may not get power for weeks, because of the tree damage.

We suffered no property damage in the storm, however two of our beautiful huge trees went down, along with multiple other trees. It could have been worse, so we are very thankful. However, our power has been out now for almost two days.

We have a generator, which is keeping our refrigerator and freezers going. Water, however, is the issue that many people don't realize how necessary it is. Luckily, we live in an area where there is a clear mountain spring that is piped out of the mountain and is open to the public to use for drinking water year round. So, we have been blessed to get our water there.

However, this power outage has gotten me to thinking about water, and how necessary it is. We can live without electricity pretty easily, and comfortably, if you have a generator. However, one thing that we don't have is a well that could be switched over to run by a generator. That is something we have learned many people have in this area, and is something we want to plan to get in the future.

However... how many of you are prepared to have enough water should you find yourselves unexpectedly without electricity?

I do know one thing, we plan to buy more water just to have in store, because if we were unable to access gasoline, that would pose a much bigger problem. No electricity, and no gas or diesel or propane available... how would we cope then? Just questions we are asking ourselves, and I thought it would be good to talk about here.

[FlamingZword]

There is plenty of water in our atmosphere.

we just need to trap it.
in africa people use sheets of plastic material to trap the water in the air.

[ILG]

Originally Posted by FlamingZword

There is plenty of water in our atmosphere.

we just need to trap it.
in africa people use sheets of plastic material to trap the water in the air.

How does that work?

[FlamingZword]

Originally Posted by ILG

How does that work?

I have no idea, I read it in some science magazine.
Apparently they use sheet of plastic to trap moisture from the air.
the heat of the sun somehow evaporates the water which then is trapped in the sheet of plastic.

[shazeep]

Originally Posted by FlamingZword

I have no idea, I read it in some science magazine.
Apparently they use sheet of plastic to trap moisture from the air.
the heat of the sun somehow evaporates the water which then is trapped in the sheet of plastic.

a boy scout thing. you put a sheet of plastic, 4'x4' or so, staked about 4-6"above the ground. Put a stone in the middle. Water evaporates from the ground, gets trapped by the plastic, and runs toward the stone, and drips into a bowl. Strictly a survival measure.

[KeptByTheWord]

Originally Posted by FlamingZword

There is plenty of water in our atmosphere.

we just need to trap it.
in africa people use sheets of plastic material to trap the water in the air.

I did a search online about this, and came up with nothing. Just wondering what you might have read about this?

[MissBrattified]

Originally Posted by KeptByTheWord

I did a search online about this, and came up with nothing. Just wondering what you might have read about this?

Google "solar still" and you'll come up with quite a bit of information.

[KeptByTheWord]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

Google "solar still" and you'll come up with quite a bit of information.

I had tried to google the idea but didn't have the right word search, as I had read something about this before myself. Thanks for the help!

For those who are interested in a solar still:

The principle of using the sun’s heat to separate water from dissolved minerals has been understood for millennia, salt ponds being the best example of how this knowledge has been put to use in the past. In salt ponds, seawater is drained into shallow ponds and then baked and purified in the sun until all that remains are crystals of salt. In this case, the pure water that gradually evaporated away was considered a useless byproduct, but as far back as the time of the ancient Greeks it was known that seawater could be made fresh and drinkable by this process.

A solar still works like a salt evaporation pond, except that the water that invisibly evaporates is extracted from the air; the minerals and other impurities are left behind and discarded. As the hot, moisture-laden air rises up to the slanting sheet of relatively cool glass sealed to the box, water condenses out in the form of small droplets that cling to the glass. As these droplets get heavier, they roll down the glass to the collector tube at the bottom and then out to the jug.

The box is built from 3/4 " BC-grade plywood, painted black on the inside to absorb heat. We used a double layer of plywood on the sides to resist warping and to help insulate the box, with an insulated door at the back and a sheet of glass on top.

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/h...#ixzz3B5HuIGLV

[MawMaw]

We are thinking about putting down an old time hand pump water well.
Plus we have access to an artesian well.

[Disciple4life]

Originally Posted by MawMaw

We are thinking about putting down an old time hand pump water well.
Plus we have access to an artesian well.

When I was a kid we had to water all of my moms flowers. We had to use a hand pump that pumped water up from a cistern that caught rain water. It was a great experience that many people my age would not understand what I am even talking about.