How many firearms & how many sources of water.....???

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Sourdough

"Eleutheromaniac"
Neighbor
HCL Supporter
Joined
Mar 17, 2018
Messages
6,171
Location
In a cabin, on a mountain, in "Wilderness" Alaska.
I say most "Preppers" have only one source of water, a faucet. And yet many choices of firearms. I don't know how long a human can stay alive with zero fluids. I do know from personal experience; without fluids my brain and body functions deteriorate rapidly.
 
Funny enough, I made a similar comment to a friend, who is of the preparedness mindset, but it was about food. We were talking about storing food and I mentioned that I like to buy my grains from Azure Standard. He asked how that worked, I explained to him about the company and that I usually bought a few hundred pounds at a time, broke the bags up into mylar and into 5 gallon buckets.

Now, this friend probably has 250 or more firearms, along with several thousand rounds for each of them. Don't get me wrong, I like my guns as much as the next guy and my count is well into the 3 digits as well, but my friend automatically goes into Rambo thoughts whenever SHTF is mentioned.

I told him that if he would like, the next time I put an order in, I could order some for him as well. He looked at me with a straight face and said: "Oh, I'm not to that level yet."

I honestly had no idea how to respond, I wasn't sure if he was kidding with me or serious. Turns out he is serious. He has an entire bedroom in his basement dedicated to firearms, but might, and this is probably a stretch, have 30 days worth of food put away and a couple of cases of bottled water. I sure hope that if he shows up at my place if things get ugly, he brings his gun collection, because if he wants to eat, I am going to wind up with a helluva nice collection of shooting irons!
 
Firearms: An assortment of tools available depending on the job to be done, from air rifles to to a 45-70 Buffalo rifle. I really only have a Buffalo Rifle because they priced it as a single shot 410 shotgun.

Water:
1: Faucet 🤡
2: Rain Collection and purification.

You need water to drink! It's also handy to have around for cooking, cleaning, hygiene, etc
 
Preppers are obsessed with having abundant food, firearms, Bug'out bags, and bug'out vehicles. Few if any want to discuss that they have "ANY" realistic "secure" sources for pure fresh abundant retrievably water.
 
dademoss said:
Firearms: An assortment of tools available depending on the job to be done, from air rifles to to a 45-70 Buffalo rifle. I really only have a Buffalo Rifle because they priced it as a single shot 410 shotgun.

Water:
1: Faucet 🤡
2: Rain Collection and purification.

You need water to drink! It's also handy to have around for cooking, cleaning, hygiene, etc
Click to expand...
Assume the faucet is out of water for six year and two months...??? And what of the cities with eleven "MILLION" humans. If preppers are going to prep, water is second to air to breath in priority. Yet, few preppers have four or six alternate sources for water.
 
I'd be hard pressed to even NAME six alternate sources of water.

City water supply - from your tap
Sky water - rain, snow, dew
Surface water - lakes and streams
Underground water - wells
(Uhm, starting to get more difficult...)
Plant water? (slicing into a barrel cactus or something?)
Solar still? (this is just sky water - kind of like "forced dew condensation")
Melting a glacier? (few of us have those in the neighborhood)
Ocean desalination? (not practical on a large scale, except at great expense)
Water drained from water heaters or toilet tanks? (that's just city water in a different type of storage container)
Storage containers in your basement? (that's not really a source, it's just a method of storing something that came from a different source)

What other alternate water sources are there? I'm not coming up with anything, except maybe a tank of hydrogen, a tank of oxygen, a match, and balls the size of grapefruits.
 
1. We have a deep hand pump well. The pump (called a "piston") is in the groundwater, which is well below our frost depth. Consequently, it can be used all year long, even at subzero temps.
1681424881685.jpeg

2. Since my former profession was as a hydrologist, I have sampled many monitoring wells with "bailers" some may call these well buckets. These can be used to drop down the well casing of our home's well. Collecting water like this is tedious, but it is Option 2.
1681424629494.png


3. We have plenty of "hard water" during 5 months of our year (ie, snow). During the other months we have several lakes and a river within a of couple miles. This option is our last resort. The last thing we want to do is haul water for a couple of miles. Water is heavy.
 
America and adjoining countries have many cities with Ten million to TWENTY-TWO MILLION population. When anyone does a thread like this, those "FEW" who are the exception respond. But my wild guess that more the 90% of humans in America have only one source of water, from a utility. My whole point is why do people have two or four years of food and only "ONE" high risk source of water. And why do prepping forums totally ignore this risk.
 
Our water is basically variations on the theme of what others reported above. Our variations are...

1)
Two developed springs produce 5000 gal/day in spring down to a trickle in August.



2)
Seven ( or more) springs waiting to be developed. Like the others the production varies seasonally.

3)
120 gallons in (3) 40 gallon water heaters.

4)
Two small streams cross our property. We have filters ready if needed. One of these streams were identified on a map going back to 1790 or so.

5)
Two rain barrel collection systems on the shelf. Never installed because our rainfall is adequate (for example the radishes often split due to too much water) for the gardens.

6)
Creek at the bottom of the hill flows year round and supports an avid group of fisher people. Once powered a grain mill. The mill and associated dam are long gone.

7)
Two 50 gallon barrels for storage. Never put into service.
2 drops clorox/gal to store water.
20 drops Clorox / gal to purify ground water.

8)
Boxes of pool shock.


To Make 1 Gallon of Bleach From Calcium Hypochlorite (Pool Shock)​

  • 11 Tablespoons of ~ 70% Calcium Hypochlorite
  • 1 Gallon of water

Bonus
Poll shock could make one a Clorox tycoon.


Ben
 
Sourdough said:
America and adjoining countries have many cities with Ten million to TWENTY-TWO MILLION population. When anyone does a thread like this, those "FEW" who are the exception respond. But my wild guess that more the 90% of humans in America have only one source of water, from a utility. My whole point is why do people have two or four years of food and only "ONE" high risk source of water. And why do prepping forums totally ignore this risk.
Click to expand...
Completely agree. Water is a huge issue that I’ve always deemed more important than many of the things most folks look at in a place to live. Sadly, if shtf happens, many will perish for this among other reasons I know you are well aware of.
 
Neb said:
Our water is basically variations on the theme of what others reported above. Our variations are...

1)
Two developed springs produce 5000 gal/day in spring down to a trickle in August.



2)
Seven ( or more) springs waiting to be developed. Like the others the production varies seasonally.

3)
120 gallons in (3) 40 gallon water heaters.

4)
Two small streams cross our property. We have filters ready if needed. One of these streams were identified on a map going back to 1790 or so.

5)
Two rain barrel collection systems on the shelf. Never installed because our rainfall is adequate (for example the radishes often split due to too much water) for the gardens.

6)
Creek at the bottom of the hill flows year round and supports an avid group of fisher people. Once powered a grain mill. The mill and associated dam are long gone.

7)
Two 50 gallon barrels for storage. Never put into service.
2 drops clorox/gal to store water.
20 drops Clorox / gal to purify ground water.

8)
Boxes of pool shock.


To Make 1 Gallon of Bleach From Calcium Hypochlorite (Pool Shock)​

  • 11 Tablespoons of ~ 70% Calcium Hypochlorite
  • 1 Gallon of water

Bonus
Poll shock could make one a Clorox tycoon.


Ben
Click to expand...

PS thanks Ben. I don’t have 8 boxes. That’s something I could have more of.
 
How long can an adult stay alive with zero water or any other fluids..??

Yes, I realize it will depend on if they are in a coma in the hospital or running a 24 hour marathon. But just generally, days, weeks months....??
 
Last edited:
Sourdough said:
How long can an adult stay alive with zero water or any other fluids..??

Yes, I realize it will depend on if they are in a coma in the hospital or running a 24 hour marathon. But just generally, days, weeks months....??
Click to expand...
Generally accepted are the rule of "3's" , but there are of course exceptions based on environmental/physical factors

3 minutes without air
3 days without water
3 weeks without food
 
We have 2 creeks and rain catchment. Plus I'm building a small 1/4-1/2 acre pond. As to guns more than I need yet nowhere close to triple digits. Honestly 5 or 6 would about handle anything we are likely to run up on as preppers or homesteaders.
 
Being able to purify the water you collect is paramount for me. I mean, how many gallons come down the spout right next to my door when it rains? Enough for weeks, if it can be collected. However, birds crap on that roof, among whatever other things are on it, and possibly in the containers used to collect it. I'm laying in a supply of iodine 2%, and boiling is an option.

Read Cody Lundin's works about survival and water. Even if it's stuff you already know, it'll probably make you think...

I've made my piece about guns well known here. No more needs to be said here...
 
Several year round springs here on the farm. They form 2 good sized streams. Another spring feeds a pond. Only 3 of them kept flowing during the severe droughts of 1954-6 and 2008-10 though. Those ran slow but they kept the pond full for the cows and the stream flowing. My family’s household water has from yet another spring since the 1880’s, until they ran city water way out here a few years ago. Hate city water, nasty tasting. I have to filter my drinking water. I sometimes let it sit on the porch overnight in a bucket. This allows the chlorine to convert to its natural gaseous state and float away.

Also, within a mile there are a dozen more springs. I live on a ridge, the start of 3 different water sheds. Every hollar for miles around has a spring in it. I have drank from all of them at one time or another while hunting or working on neighboring farms since I was a kid. I even know which springs have the best tasting water… and which ones never run dry.

Joe Random a (2).jpg
Joe Random a (8).jpg
 
Spikedriver said:
What's the situation in your area?
Click to expand...
just short of 54 years of drinking UN-treated water directly out of Alaska Lakes, Creeks, Springs all over NON-urban Alaska, never have gotten sick, never had a hunter get sick.
 
We store 8 to 10 bottles of water. Those 5 gallon plastic jugs that you put on a water dispenser. So that's between 40 and 50 gallons - for drinking. We have a 55 gallon water heater, so we could maybe drain 40 gallons out of that - for drinking. Three toilets, so maybe another six gallons from those (the fill tanks, not the bowls!) combined - for washing. Then we have the hot tub, which is about 500 gallons - for washing. If we have any advance warning, we can fill three bathtubs. And two 45 gallon Rubbermaid trash cans (clean - normally used to age water for saltwater aquariums). And a few empty 5 gallon water jugs that haven't been picked up by the water delivery guys yet. We probably have between 3 and 4 million sports water bottles that have been given to us as promos over the years down in the basement, so we could use those too. I do have a couple of those "Life Straws" that can do basic filtering - we have several open reservoirs around us. We've got some iodine and some bleach we could use to assist in purification, along with boiling on our Coleman two burner camping stove (we keep two full BBQ grill propane bottles - are those 20lb bottles? - and we have an adapter so those could be hooked up to the Coleman for the boiling). No rivers or streams within fifteen to twenty miles though. Oh yeah, we do have one rain barrel catchment. That's only 55 gallons though, and it's feast or famine with that thing (we don't get enough rain here to keep it full when we use it for plant watering). It's either overflowing, or near empty it seems.

If all else fails, I could walk up to the two 1-million gallon water towers up on the hill with us (about 200 yards away). That's part of the towns water supply. Maybe I could take my battery powered DeWalt drill up there and bore a hole in those and fill a few more buckets. I'll bet the city would be mighty pissed however. I should take a cork with me to plug the hole when I'm done.
 
Water is an area where I feel pretty fortunate even though I have some limitations. I live high up on a mountain where in Alaska, wells often don’t produce. Our well is 110 foot deep and produces about 170 gallons per day of the best tasting water on earth. I have an electric pump, and deep well hand pump and a galvanized well bucket that can all pull water from the well. More than enough water for us unless we get stupid. For agriculture I have a rain water collection system off the main cabin and outbuildings that produces more than enough for what we grow. For emergency backup, we have a couple springs. One spring produces water year round that doesn’t freeze (might need to chip at it when it’s really cold) in winter with enough water flow to fill a 5 gallon bucket in 4-5 seconds. This flow is enough where I have thought about making some sort of electric generator, but it’s a 1/4 mile or so from my house. Just off the property on the left and right sides of the property we have streams that I can pull grayling and trout out of one during summer months. A mile below us is a glacier feed river. In about an hour I can walk from my property to a glacier that is a couple miles wide and many winding miles long. Lakes here and there too.
 
Cabin Fever said:
The bucket auger looks like it will only bore a hole that is around 4-feet deep.
Click to expand...
Yep, if ya Don't follow the Directions to 'buy sections of 10' iron pipe to extend to the [depth] you desire'.. Practical-limit (soil dependent) is about 50-55', from what they (the OEM) says - which: caviat, I have Not personally proven, one way or another, since we didn't want to 'leave it in CA' (which you'd obviously have to Do, once sunk) but..

..Again, "emergency water well" (IF ya've got clean standing-water, shallow enough..) is the idea, here. Your 'piston-sys' is Certainly a better investment of time / elbow-grease / funds, etc.. Just "an Option", YMMV and all. :cool:

jd
 
I live in the middle of a rain forest. We have three year round residences and one that is occupied about three months a year. We have four active cisterns of 3500 to 5000 gallons each and all the water is rain catchment. We have two cisterns, 1500 and 3500 gallons respectively, in reserve. We have a 5000 gallon redwood cistern that needs a new bottom. We don't repair that as we have more than enough storage without it.

Our neighbour is a commercial water hauler. There are plenty of lakes and streams to choose from but that has never been an issue.

I think I have a gun around here somewhere.
 
Haertig said:
We store 8 to 10 bottles of water. Those 5 gallon plastic jugs that you put on a water dispenser. So that's between 40 and 50 gallons - for drinking. We have a 55 gallon water heater, so we could maybe drain 40 gallons out of that - for drinking.

If all else fails, I could walk up to the two 1-million gallon water towers up on the hill with us (about 200 yards away). That's part of the towns water supply. Maybe I could take my battery powered DeWalt drill up there and bore a hole in those and fill a few more buckets. I'll bet the city would be mighty pissed however. I should take a cork with me to plug the hole when I'm done.
Click to expand...
I agree. Too many people read their water bill, divide it by the number of people in the house, and figure how many gallons of water each person will need to survive a month :(.
They never think about how few gallons people actually consume (that is if you are not outside down here enjoying our 95° days :rolleyes:).
The vast majority is used for: showering, washing clothes, flushing toilets, washing dishes, and not drinking.
The bulk of what we 'consume' can easily be covered with untreated 'grey-water'.
 
Four sources of water, three wells & rain, there is a creek with in a mile.
four rifles, five shotguns, five pistols, two bows with arrows.
 
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