Scenario 2: Loss of Tap Water for 1-7 Days

Water is a necessity, I don't have to tell you that. The recommendation I see most often is one gallon per day for each adult family member. For my wife and I, we have stockpiled 50 gallons of water in the basement that I rotate regularly.

If we were to lose water in our home, these are the options I see:

Option 1: If the office has more services than home, we could go stay at the office. We can't shower there but would have running water we could wash with. We also may be able to transport water from the office to home.

Option 2: Go stay with a friend who still has all services, or visit a friend's house to refill our supply.

Option 3: Get a hotel room that still has all services.

Option 4: Stay in the home.

A day in the life at home with no water:

• I get up whenever and drink a glass of water from our stockpile. 
• I fill the coffee pot with water from our stockpile and make coffee.
• I go to use the bathroom but can flush the toilet only if I fill the tank with water from our stockpile. If we're stuck at home, we'll probably have to do that five times a day. Our low-flow toilet uses 1.6 gallons per flush.
• My wife uses a bit of water from the stockpile while heating up her oatmeal.
• I can't take a shower so I use about a gallon of our water to take a sponge bath and wash my hair. My hair stays pretty short but hers is shoulder length. It would probably take her two gallons to clean up well but she would probably only do that every couple of days unless it's very hot outside.
• We both head off to work assuming this is just a water line break and the city is still functioning.
• If we're stuck at home due to an earthquake or storm, we'll probably use another half-gallon of water for cooking lunch and washing up during the day. We can use hand sanitizers to help keep our hands clean.
• If we cook dinner, we would probably use another half gallon for cooking or washing food.
• After dinner, we'd probably use a couple of gallons to wash/rinse all of the dishes for the day. It would be helpful to use a couple of small washing tubs, one to hold water with soap, one to hold rinse water, similar to the three-bowl sinks restaurants use.

How much water did we use?

• Drinking: 2 gallons, assuming it's hot and we're active
• Cooking: 1 gallon
• Flushing toilet: 8 gallons
• Personal Hygiene: 3 gallons
• Cleaning dishes: 2 gallons

Daily total: 16 gallons

Of the five gallons used for Personal Hygiene and Cleaning Dishes, four could likely be salvaged for flushing the toilet bringing our daily total down to 12 gallons.

At that rate, we'd burn through our 50 gallon stockpile in four days so it doesn't meet our seven-day goal. If possible, we could flush the toilet less, but would you really want to? We could also use less for hygiene and cleaning dishes, maybe cutting that in half, but I like to stay clean and don't like a lot of dirty dishes piling up, and if the gray water would be used for flushing the toilet, it's not much of a loss.

To comfortably get through seven days, we'd need about 100 gallons of water. Half would be used for flushing the toilet so it can be second-use gray water or from a source other than our stockpile. We have some small creeks and streams within a one-mile walk of home but I don't want to be hauling water to survive seven days. We may be able to catch rainwater or melt some snow, but that's unpredictable in a short-term scenario. We could drain the hot water heater but that may be potable water I'd hate to use for flushing the toilet in case the outage on longer than expected.

We'll have to find some other options.


Without Water in the home, we would lose the following:

• Tap water for cooking and drinking
• Ability to flush the toilet without filling it from stored water
• Hot water from tap
• Used for washing hands
• Used for shaving
• Used for showering
• Used for cleaning around the house
• Used for cleaning dishes
• Used for cleaning vegetables
• Ability to clean minor wounds
• Washing machine
• Dishwasher
• Icemaker

What we have:

• 50 gallons of water in plastic jugs that we rotate regularly. I take five gallons a week to the office to drink there, and we bring five new gallons into the stockpile each week.
• Hand sanitizer
• Low-water use dish soap (This is soap you put on a wet washcloth and can wash multiple dishes. You don't have to have a water/soap mixture although it is helpful.)
• Clean clothes to last one week
• Clean towels to last one week

What might help in this situation:

• With basic calculations above showing that half of our stockpile would be used to flush the toilet, storing 50 gallons of gray water somewhere around the home may be helpful. We need that 50 potable gallons just to get support drinking, cooking, and cleaning
• If we have to heat water for use in personal hygiene, we need an easy way to transport 1-2 gallons of heated water to the bathroom
• A large shallow bowl that could hold water used to clean hands

Basic Preparation:

• Store 50 gallons of potable water in our home. We currently have this in 1-gallon jugs of drinking water from Kroger. These are great but if they sit around for too long, the jugs become brittle and will often start leaking if moved. We've also experience this with 5-gallon jugs after just a couple of months. We need to replace these with mylar bags/boxed water, or more durable 5-gallon jugs.
• Would probably be smart to store an additional 50 gallons of non-potable water in trash cans in the basement. This water would be used only for flushing the toilet. I would prefer to store in garage but am concerned with freezing. If stored in basement, do so next to water heater so if a can leaks or breaks, it will drain into sump pump and out of basement. Check storage weekly to ensure it remains in usable condition.
• Long term, it may make sense to store the extra 50 gallons in better containers as potable water. Due to the expense of those containers we'll stick with trash cans which will get us through a short-term situation. The money saved can be better spent elsewhere right now.
• Figure out how to safely transport 1-2 gallons of heated water to a bathroom for use in personal hygiene
• Buy some kind of flat bowl that can be used as a wash basin if you can't find something around the house. If you just use a sink, it might be hard to capture that gray water to use to flush the toilet.
• Figure out which bucket is easiest to pour into the toilet for flushing and mark it at appropriate fill level. If you don't have one that won't spill a lot, go get one.
• Get a couple of small, kitchen washing tubs to use for washing dishes. This will help give a shallower bowl than the sink and will make it easier to keep the gray water.
• Might keep fire extinguishers at arm's reach when cooking in case there is a small fire that I might just try to douse with water first.

Purchases to consider:

• A better storage solution for the 50 gallons of potable since the current jugs become brittle
• Trash cans to store gray water for use only to flush the toilet. Replace these long term with potable water.
• A flat, stainless steel bowl to use as a wash basin
• A better bucket for filling toilet to flush
• A better bucket for transporting hot water to bathroom
• Two small wash tubs to use in the kitchen