Always filter water as a first step in emergency water treatment. When municipal water supplies falter and electrical power fails, homeowners must turn to unusual sources. Serious illness could result from drinking without filtering and treating available water from plumbing reservoirs, swimming pools and waterways. Homemade filters and commercial filters help avoid these problems.
- Boiling or chemically treating water will actually be the real defense against water-borne disease, but filtration helps by removing many contaminants. If the water is cloudy, let it settle and filter it through layers of clean cloth. Boiling the water for one minute meets government standards for safe drinking, but other experts recommend boiling for ten. Five to eight drops of chlorine bleach per gallon of water will also kill harmful bacteria and viruses. Crude filters only remove obvious debris.
- Ceramic water filters that remove particles down to one micron in diameter effectively remove harmful organisms and provide immediately drinkable water. Not all filters sold for improving the quality of tap water meet these standards. Check with the manufacturer to find out what additional steps may be needed. Filters that depend upon a pressurized water system to operate won't be of help in a real emergency.
- Homemade water filters built in stages filter water in large amounts but not perfectly. The filter stages should run from coarse to fine--first stages screen out large pieces of debris and later stages remove finer particles. If the last stage is a deep layer of activated charcoal, like that used in aquarium water filters, the result will be water that looks clean. Disinfect it by boiling or treatment with chemicals before drinking it. Layered filters in clean 50 gallon drums can process rainwater from a gutter system for storage in tanks or cisterns. Rooftops catch more than rain--runoff may include grit and asphalt residue from shingles, bird droppings and dead insects. Gutters may conceal dead animals. Homemade filters are not enough to guarantee potable water.
- Though their total output can be as low as 200 gallons per filter, small backpacking water filters are a great idea for the home emergency kit as well as for a camping vacation. Combined with simple cloth filters to remove coarse debris, backpacking filters produce drinkable water from emergency sources like hot water heaters and even the reservoirs of toilets.
- Emergencies don't only happen in the cities--in a wilderness situation when clean water runs short, an emergency filter pit dug in the bank of a creek or the shore of a lake uses the ground itself as a primitive filter. Wait for the hole to fill and the water to clear before filling a container. Stage filters with found materials like dry grass or clean sand can be rigged from spare clothing.
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