I’ve mentioned it before. When it comes right down to it, your primary concern in a bug in preparation scenario is…

Prepare to Bug In

If you are not familiar with what it means to prepare to bug in, let me give you a crash course on what it means.

According to Mind4Survival®, “Bugging in is securing your home or another location as a shelter when a disaster or other difficult times occur. By hunkering down at home, your tools, gear, food, and other resources will be with you. Not only should they be with you, but they should be present in enough quantities to survive over time. Therefore, sheltering in your home reduces the need to move outside of your sphere of influence. Doing so also reduces the risks associated with the movement to your BOL.” (BOL = Bug Out Location)

Top Bug-In Preparation

Water!!! How long can you live without water? Not long. Even the medical experts can’t agree on how long. There are varying circumstances that go into determining this. How hot is it? Are you healthy? Are you close to dehydration?

Not only do the experts not agree, but also they change their minds. Oh my. According to Medical News Today, the most common situations are how old you are, if you are exercising or not, health, which I mentioned already, your bodily features (height or weight), and one that I would not have thought of – sex. Say what??

Water Storage

Have you ever wondered how much water you should store when prepping? If we listen to Ready.gov, they indicate you should have at least one gallon of water per person per day. You think to yourself, well that’s okay. I can do that. So, let’s do a comparison. What does the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) say for how much water you should have in an emergency? What they say is, ” Store at least 1 gallon of water per person per day for 3 days for drinking and sanitation. Try to store a 2-week supply if possible.

Consider storing more water than this for hot climates, pregnant women, and persons who are sick.

In the same way, PrimalSurvivor says this, “We recommend stockpiling at least 1 gallon of water per person, per day (aiming for 30 days). However, if you are not used to conserving water, you’ll probably need around 3 gallons per person, per day.”

Finally, let’s look at one more site

Let’s look at FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), “You will also need water for food preparation and hygiene. Store at least one gallon per person, per day. Consider storing at least a two-week supply of water for each member of your family. If you are unable to store this quantity, store as much as you can.”

Are you starting to see a trend here? In my opinion, the consensus appears to be that you should store at least one gallon daily per person for a minimum of two weeks. I am more inclined to use what Steve Hunt, owner of Practical Preppers said many years ago, “”To stay in good health and be able to function normally, Hunt says that a person should plan to have at least a gallon of drinking water each day, plus another four gallons for personal hygiene. And most of that must be potable—that is, sufficiently free of dangerous microorganisms and contaminants that would be safe to drink.”

The reason I like this is because I have pets, plus it also considers people with health issues that may need more water – let alone the importance of personal hygiene.

Water Purification

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If you really think about it, what do you need to consider when storing your emergency water supply? To start with, you need to know how safe it is to put it into storage bottles and bins and stick it in a back closet somewhere.

According to Wikipedia, the treatment of water involves improving the quality of water so it is safe to use when you are ready to do that. To begin with, the end use may be one of the following.

• drinking,
• industrial water supply,
• irrigation,
• river flow maintenance,
• water sports and other activities,
• and the process of being safely returned to the environment.

Water treatment takes out contaminants and undesirable components from the water, or at least reduces their concentration so that the water becomes fit for its desired end-use. That means that you, I, and the rest of the world enjoy better health.

Types of Water Purification

There seem to be quite a few methods you can use for water purification. First of all, let’s take a look at what water purification means.

Again, Wikipedia says this: “Water purification is the process of removing undesirable chemicals, biological contaminants, suspended solids, and gases from water. The goal is to produce water fit for specific purposes.”

Hmm, that sounds just what we are looking for, doesn’t it? Let’s begin by looking at various ways you can use to clean water.

Disinfect With Chemicals

Specifically, you can use either liquid bleach or tablets. Tablets are typically easier to use. I offer a word of caution here, however. Don’t use bleach that contains scents, added cleaners, or ones that mention “color-safe.”

Second on our list is boiling water.

Boil That Water!

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is quite clear that boiling water is effective against killing pathogenic bacteria, viruses and protozoa. The recommended time to boil the water is at least one minute unless you are above 5,000 feet (1,000 meters) in altitude. If you are above level, then you want to boil it for at least three minutes.

Once you have treated your water, then you want to store it in clean containers that have a lid. If you don’t like the taste of boiled water, then just add a pinch of salt to improve it.

Top Bug In Preparation

Next on the list are survival straws. An increasingly popular water filter and one of the smallest and lightest of water disinfecting tools to hit the marketplace lately are the straw style of water filter.

Newer models can be used as you would a drinking straw and can also connect to the drain valve on a water heater to clean up the water, or even a hose.

Personal Water Filter By Lifestraw – $24.97
from: Survival Frog LLC

Distillation Is Another Method

How can you do it? Start by digging a hole in the sun and filling it with the water you want to clean. Set a clean container in the middle and then cover the hole and the container with a plastic sheet. Don’t forget to make sure the sheet is completely sealed around the edges and place a rock in the center, so the sheet points downwards towards your empty container.

As the sun begins to heat the dirty water, evaporation and collection of condensation will occur on the inside of your sheet. The next step is that gravity pulls the clean water droplets down to your rock where they will drip into your container.

From Water Purification to Water Storage

Now that you have treated your water, what type of containers are you going to use for your top bug in storage method? There are several you could chose from. I’ll show you a couple that are economical.

To begin with, you want to remember that water is heavy! That means your flooring must be sturdy enough to support the weight.

Types of Containers

Equally important are what types of containers should you use to store your water. Your container needs to be cleaned and in a disinfected water storage container. The container can be made of plastic, glass, enameled metal, or fiberglass. In addition, the water storage container must be sealed to prevent dust, bacteria, and other contagions from finding their way into your drinking water.

By the way, there are all different sizes of containers that you can store emergency water in. For example, you can store in 1 gallon bottles all the way up to 50 gallon or even more.

Caution: ***Disclosure: This post and our website contain affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make purchases using them. Please see our affiliate disclosure.***

Portable Water Containers – Portable water containers come in a variety of sizes. The most common are 5 gallons, 7 gallons, and 15 gallons. Most of them are solid; however, you can also get collapsibile. You can even get stackable.

Of course, you can graduate to larger capacity like 30-gallon or 50-gallon sizes but I would not put them in the category of portable.

Next on our list to look at are waterbricks.

WaterBricks – Especially useful are WaterBricks because they can be used for a variety of uses. Just look at the list below to see what I mean.

In short, waterbricks are portable, stackable, durable and can be used for water or dry products including food, ammo, or anything else you want to keep dry. They hold 3.5 gallons of water and weigh 29 pounds when full. In my opinion, they are far more convenient than some of the other stackables.

Final Words

So did you pick up on what the top bug in preparation for emergency situations is? Let me reiterate: WATER!

Within this post, we have looked at a recap on what bugging in means, the top bug-in preparation, water storage, and water purification. I know it’s a long article but being forwarned is being forearmed. After all, to be prepared is to survive!
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Prepare to Bug In is a subsidiary of Borlok Virtual Assistants, LLC. Our mission is to learn as much as we can about bugging in and survival techniques and then to pass that information on to our readers. Enjoy!