Monday, August 11, 2008

No water

There was a break in the water main last week near where Mama lives. We were suddenly without water. No warning. No clue when water would be restored.

It's amazing how dependent we are on water. Mama was trying to finish watering her plants, but nothing would come out. We thought the hose was twisted at first. I was trying to brush my teeth. Suddenly, all the things that I had planned for the morning (shower, dishwasher, clothes washer, floor mopping) were impossible.

As it happens, My Prince and I have some experience with water shortages. We lived for a while in an area where clean water was an issue and so was the frequent loss of water supply. That experience was called into play when the water was cut off a second day at Mama's and then we had to get ready for Tropical Storm Edouard.

Luckily, we were without water for only a few hours when the mains were being worked on, and nothing dreadful happened with Edouard. While I should have taken the work on the mains as a sign of things to come (but didn't), I did wake up with Edouard and decided to take the opportunity for some real disaster planning and preparation. Mama and I treated it like a drill.

Here's what we did (and talked about doing):
  • We bought more drinking water. The Red Cross recommends having a 2-week supply on hand. They recommend 1 gallon per day per adult. For Mama and me, that worked out to 28 gallons. We don't have that much yet, but we are close.
  • I filled the bathtub with water. While I would never want to drink that water, it could be purified with 16 drops of household bleach per gallon and then consumed. My goal was to keep the toilet reservoir filled so that Mama could flush when needed. We did, however, have a little discussion about when to flush. "When it's yellow, it's mellow. When it's brown, it's down," according to Larry on Dharma & Greg. We may need to work on this one.
  • We discussed other sources of water. I mentioned that I had learned about the secret supply in the hot water tank. Mama suggested that we fill the tub of the washing machine.
  • We talked about water usage. This included reminding Mama that she would have to keep drinking water, an especially critical issue for her health problems. We agreed that we could "bathe" in very small amounts of water.
  • Before Edouard was due in, I made sure that all the clothes had been washed and that we had showered and washed our hair. Same for running the dishwasher and mopping the floor.
Here is what I didn't do, but might consider for future disaster planning:
  • Set up a system for rainwater collection (not likely to be needed in Houston since we would evacuate before reaching that level of need).
  • Find some aluminum sulfate (which I have incorrectly been referring to as "alum"). This little chunk of mineral, when just swished through a bucket of water a couple of times, will cause all of the suspended matter to precipitate out and sink to the bottom of the bucket. We used this while overseas, and found that it made water purification much faster and simpler.
  • Get an alternative cooking unit for boiling water (and cooking). Again, we would likely evacuate before getting to the boiling water stage, but electric stoves tend not to be handy when the lights go out. A gas grill (which I had already begun to covet) might be just the thing.
  • Start saving the empty plastic jugs that the drinking water comes in. We may fill them up with tap water and store them in the bathtub. The tub seems to leak a bit even with double stoppers, so this might preserve a needed water supply. We can also stack the jugs higher than the drain outlet and (I think) store more water. Or we could just have a big mess. It's worth a try.
I'm not thinking we need to set up any sort of filtration system, but this has been in the back of my mind for years. I don't like the taste of tap water. (The only place I've ever been able to drink from the tap and like it is Seattle.) I need cleaner water to protect my kidneys now. One of the jobs that we had to do while overseas was make sure that we had safe drinking water. That mean using "alum," double filtering, and boiling. I just keep thinking that a filter would be handy, but we've never done anything about it. Maybe it's time to talk about it.

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