(I had a few minutes to spare after waking at 0300, so I did this as a start on a practical guidebook. I'll just include the first chapter here, and let you know when the completed book is available).

Introduction.

About the author:- Michael Knight has much personal outdoors survival experience, and also owned The Portland Preparedness Center in Portland Oregon for several years. He has worked as a volunteer fireman in Mossyrock, WA, and has a certificate in Community Emergency Response Team training.

About this book:-

In these uncertain times, with inflation ramping up daily and reports of looming crop (food) shortages, the time to prepare is now.

This guide is based on the author's down-to-earth experience. It is simple and practical. It covers all the important aspects of being prepared. Common sense rules. Being prepared means being self-sufficient.

Each section includes recommendations for what you might need in that category.

Once you are well prepared, you can carry on your everyday life, secure in the knowledge that you (and your family) will be able to survive any disruptions that might come your way.

Now, as a preview, let's start with water.

Chapter One - Water

Water is the second-most essential thing for human life. Air, as in oxygen, is obviously foremost. Without it, a person can die in a matter of minutes.

Without water, death occurs in a matter of days.

If you have both air and water, but no food, starvation also leads to ones demise.

Clearly, then, air water and food are essential for survival.

In the survival and preparedness fraternity, water seldom gets the attention it deserves.

Perhaps this is because the assumption is that it will always be available.

But will it? No, not always, and that's a good reason for taking a close look at the subject.

What needs to be considered in regards to water, is its source, supply, delivery, usage and disposal.

The source, for the vast majority of people, is the city water system.

The city gets its water from a catchment - catching water perhaps from a river, but more likely from a natural underground reservoir, known as an aquifer.

Pumps are required to keep the water flowing into the city treatment facilities.

Chlorine and Fluoride (among other things, such as antibiotics) are added to the water before it is pumped throughout the city.

It is then instantly available at the turn of a faucet, or the flush of a toilet.

This system also requires a city-wide drainage network.

This too relies on pumps to direct waste water, including sewage, to whatever treatment it must undergo before being discharged. It may be discharged into lakes, or rivers, or the ocean. In some major cities it is re-treated and literally recycled as potable water.

This supply chain can be disrupted in a matter of minutes, or even seconds, because it relies on electric pumps. Shut those pumps down, and water stops running.

 Suddenly you're on your own, with maybe one flush left in the toilet, perhaps some ice cubes in your refrigerator's ice box, and that's it.

If you happen to have your own well, as we do, unless you have fitted it with a backup hand pump, you are also out of water if the electricity goes out.

You therefore need to see water as your first priority in your preparedness program.

Personal Experience:- In the 1950s the town I grew up in, in New Zealand, got its water from a nearby river. But it had no large-scale filter system so in times of flood, we would have muddy water delivered to the house.

I recall my mother filling the bathtub with that water, allowing it to settle enough so she could ladle out some not-so-muddy top water, run it through a filter cloth (usually a cotton diaper) then boil it to make a cup of tea.

I haven't been much of a water drinker since then, but now that I'm in America, water is definitely essential for that morning coffee.

In the 2021/22 winter we got snowed in and spent a week without water. It wasn't that the electricity went out (although it often does). This time it was caused, not by the well running dry, which it has done at times, but by a fault in the pumphouse circuitry.

Initially I thought the automatic pressure switch had failed. Rather than spend hundreds on getting an electrician on the job, a $30 replacement was ordered online. Once fitted, it failed to activate the pump. Further investigation found the real problem - as simple as corrosion on one of the grounding wire connections. A few back-and-forth twists with a flat-head screwdriver (thank you Leatherman Wingman) ... problem solved.

We do not have a hand pump on that well, but fortunately, we have a 1200-gallon backup tank of water which we bought many years ago. We suspended a silver coin in it to keep it fresh, which it has done for years. We also have some five-gallon potable water containers outside, and a five-gallon bucket of water in the bathroom.

During such outages, which aside from snowfalls or frozen pipes have also been caused by storms and blown-down lines and trees in the past, toilet flushing is only done when "essential." Our place was built circa 1950. It has its own underground septic tank and drain field, so no pumps are required.

We have another bucket of water stored in the laundry for emergency cooking water. As well, we have a Katadyne ceradyne water filter. We use it all the time because there is some iron particulate in our well water. Dealing with that requires regular changes of the coarse filter in the plumbing system itself, and then further filtering through the Katadyne to remove the finest rust particles. The Katadyne ceramic filters can be scrubbed clean every so often, so they last for a very long time.

The deep well has run dry several times over the years. Initially this was because we over-used what was available to water our gardens with automatic sprinklers. It takes up to six hours for the deep well to rise enough for the pump to be restarted. Therefore, we have been watering by hand, with hoses, for many years now. We have also found that a hose left on and dripping overnight, or which has a leak in it somewhere, can run the well dry.

We do have a shallow well which is about 40 feet deep (to the bottom) with water up to the 20ft level. It is easy enough to lower a one-gallon bucket on a rope to get that water, but we haven't had to do so, so far. However, we are definitely putting in a cheap manual pump for the shallow well. Manual pumps are available at various price points for both shallow and deep wells.

Not knowing your personal circumstances, we cannot offer specific advice on how you might store water, although a water barrel or two, along with a cheap siphon pump, might be a good and affordable start. A water filter such as a Berkey or Katadyne does hold quite a few liters (or gallons) depending on model.

You can also purchase specialized filters that will deal with suspect water from sources such as a rain barrel, stream, creek, or river. Tablets and powder also have their place. (We have tablets as part of our emergency travel kits in our backpacks in the car).

Following are links to a few water-related products worth considering. These are affiliate links to Amazon sellers. This is convenient because they can be quickly shipped to your chosen address. We get a small commission per sale, but the item does not cost you any more than the listed price.

Water Filters/Purifiers

Katadyne TRK    Big Berkey 12L    Royal Berkey 3.25gal    Outback 5gal

Tablets    Powder    Gravity Bag 3L