by Selco, The Organic Prepper:
Note: The biggest concerns in any long-term emergency are water and sanitation because the lack of these things can cause serious illness or even death. Because water and sanitation aren’t nearly as glamorous as guns and gadgets, they’re often overlooked in a preparedness plan. I asked Selco some questions about these important issues in this interview. The truth about it is dirty, unpleasant, and something for which you absolutely must plan.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Once there was no more running water, how did you get drinking water?
Just like most other things (especially when it comes to non-preppers) it was a matter of levels and layers.
The tap water was going on and off for a few days before service went completely off, so people had a few bottles of drinking water stored. But of course, most of us thought everything going to be restored very soon so nobody had thought about storing big amounts of water.
When it comes to lack of water and being unprepared, the levels and layers that I am mentioning meant that you first looked and asked for tap water (clean) for drinking. Then collecting water from rooftops sounded like a good idea. Then drinking directly from the river was good if there was no other source. And then, finally, when there was no other source. you simply drink dirty water even when you were sure it is quite dirty.
It was a matter of low resources, desperation, and of course low skill levels.
Our main sources were rain and the river.
Can you tell us about your rainwater collection system?
It was not anything smart, especially in the beginning.
The gutter system normally took water from the roof through pipes into the underground collectors and sewers. When we concluded that the running water was not coming back, we simply sawed off a piece of gutter and pushed it inside the main gutter that led from the roof system (on the side of the house that looked inside the yard). Then we collected water inside a barrel.
We just used the water collecting system that was existing there already, and just cut it off at a lower point, before the water was “lost” and redirected the water into a barrel.
It is actually pretty amazing how much water you can collect from the roof during one summer storm. A lot.
When it comes to that system of water collecting our main problem was lack of containers, because even if there is a huge amount of water to “catch” from the rain, we did not have enough adequate containers for that.
Probably if we were prepared in a smart way for that, our water problems would have been easier.
How did you purify/filter water for drinking and cooking?
Two main ways: boiling and filtering.
Filtering of the water was very rudimentary. We did not use any real filters, and people did not know how to make anything too complicated.
The most complicated filter that I saw in those times was a slightly changed version of a “bottle ” filter with rocks and sand with added cloth inside.
We used cloths for filtering, or gauze. If water was visibly contaminated (particles) we would repeat the procedure until the water looked satisfying for us.
Boiling was a widespread method of making water drinkable, and often the quality of stoves and fuel for it were “measured” by the time needed for water to boil.
Were the rivers and streams contaminated? If so, how quickly after things went bad?
River and streams in cities were polluted (if we talk about drinking) before the war because poor care was taken of it, and it was mainly because of industry.
When SHTF that kind of pollution went down because of obvious reasons (everything stopped working) but other kinds of pollutants were there. City services did not work and many people lived next to that river (upstream too). So it was polluted with everything, including bodies from time to time.
We drink it, sometimes even without boiling and filtering. I survived it, but I was sick many times, probably because of that.
How did you keep yourself clean?
By the standards from before SHTF and standards today we were not clean most of the time, because most of the time we did not have enough water for that.
By the standard of that time (SHTF) we managed to use very small amounts of water to keep ourselves as clean as possible.
Most of the time it was something like sponge bathing with a bottle of water.
It was a joke at that time. Often people would say, “I just had a shower using wet napkin only(from MRE)”
Years later I saw a similar scene in a movie, and it brought memories back.
And actually, it is a great thing to have a huge stash of those ready for SHTF.
When it was safe, we used the river for that, or people sometimes simply get naked in their yard during the rain.
What did you do for a toilet?
Very close to our house, through the destroyed building, there was a small piece of land, which was “hidden” from all sides. We used that as a simple “dig a hole” latrine. Later we built something like primitive field latrine.
It was a simple hole in the ground covered with wooden boards, with channels leading away.
It worked more or less, but we had the good luck of having that place with enough “ground” close to home where it was pretty safe for spending that time there.
Folks use toilet everywhere that was available. Inside toilets were mostly out of use mainly because of the lack of water.
Of course. it contributed greatly to the city being a very dirty place.
Did you see an increase in sanitation-related illnesses like typhus, cholera? How did you treat those illnesses?
Everybody was at least once really sick from diseases that probably were caused by lack of hygiene, bad water, and bad food.
Diarrhea, vomiting, exhaustion…
A lot of people had a couple of times heavy episodes of that because simply, the whole chain of hygiene was really bad and broken.
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