All good information.

Note that milk jugs shouldn't be used. I hope you scratch that from the first post. There's two main reasons not to use them.
1) They break down. Preppers have found that plastic containers of this kind will spontaneously leak and therefore ruin what's below them. They're made to be recycled and the thickness has been pared down over time to where they're fragile.
2) Caesin proteins and fats in milk resist cleaning. You could spend a lot of time using bleach and still not remove them. They tend to coat the interior and you can't scrub it easily.This means stored water will end up full of bacteria. Some people use bleach but still, it's a bad plan.
[link to faculty.deanza.edu]

So, I wouldn't use them. Use something else that you can at least clean well.

A better solution is a 55 gallon barrel with a closeable lid. It will hold up.

Even in a pinch, many of you probably have sealable plastic bins. When filled with water, you can't stack them. They will be enormously heavy. That has to be a major consideration.

How will you haul water from whatever source is locally available? You need a stout cart for this purpose.

When purifying water, you never ever will take it with you, but will haul water back and purify at home. Why? Your water purifier will be gold after a collapse.

There are many inexpensive water purifiers that have prefilters to remove sediment, then a main filter to purify the water. They cost from $50 on up depending upon complexity. A prefilter will greatly increase the longevity of your main filter. Look to see what the maximum purificaton in gallons (or liters) is. Then divide that by cost to get an idea of value.

In a true collapse, many of you could save your tribe by building a biosand filter. It costs about $50 in materials. It's used all over the world. We have documentation on its efficacy. It's easy to make.
[link to www.biosandfilter.org]


It will remove up to 97% of pathogens. Because any well can be contaminated easily post-collapse by fecal matter runoff, dead bodies, agricultural waste and chemical fertilizers, then you need a well and a biosand filter.

The first wells will be shallow point wells. They are cheap to install and one person can put one in and save everyone. You might hit water as low as 8 feet but no more than 25 feet.

They however are so close to the surface that they can easily be contaminated. Long term, you need a deeper well. That's an organized activitity that can easily be done by a team doing water drilling, simple tool making for breaking the sod and ground, feeding everyone, etc.

Many of you could create stability in your neighborhoods post-collapse by organizing this biosand filter and then people will respect you and look up to you for guidance. There's a ton of preppers and we can rebuild society if we chose to. All that knowledge and MacGuyvering is locked in your brains. It's up to you to help or else likely deal with them. Personally since they may have skills my tribe needs, I'm going to help some of them.

Organizing three member teams of stout-hearted men to gather water and bring it back safely will save whole neighborhoods. It's one of the first community acitivities.

It takes time to get the biosand filter to work, so in the interim you're using bleach or pool shock.

Doing several of these ideas will greatly increase your worth as a proven leader. It might also work towards the cure of your soul. God is watching and so are your children and wife.

Long term, your community will build an above ground cistern in all likelihood and collect rainwater. Then since above ground, it will have force to drain to crops or be used to fill water barrels.


All of these aspects are located in the 1st topic in my sig. The topics include complex ways to deal with crucial aspects of living, but made yourself cheaply using low tech requirements. The topics begin simply and then build upon each other to slowly convince people how to prepare prudently. Don't be put off by the initial simplicity. It was done intentionally. By the end, you can learn how to make ice at 80 deg F which is pretty amazing and might save valuable medicine like insulin or cool a fever in the absence of antibiotics.

Good luck. Stop waiting to prepare.

Most people will suffer dehhydration very rapidly in a collapse and so, by the time they panic and respond, it might be at the 2.5 day marker and by then, your mind will be experiencing delirium.

Dehydration leads to hypotension. That caused blurred vision, passing out, stumbling, and death as your kidneys fail.

If you go to a farmer's supply, you can purchase these kinds of water containers. They use them. Realize that this container will be enormously heavy.
275 gallons x 8.34 lbs/gallon = 2,293.5 lbs. You need a strong base of reinforced concrete to hold that.


If you were catching rainwater from your gutters into a typical 50 gallon garbage can for watering crops, it would weigh 50 gal x 8.34 lbs/gal = 417 lbs. Good luck moving that. It will be unwieldly. You can use it, but you'll need to siphon it, right?

Do you now realize the difficulties of hauling water and why you need special carts and strong men to haul them. At the beginning based upon seasonal rain and distance and the contour of the traversed land, it makes for a Herculean task. None of your neighbors will realize what they're up against especially if the water source is three miles away in one direction. Be realistic. In a collapse, you're not driving there. You're walking and grunting and cursing and finally getting back many hours after you departed.

Because rainfall may be very seasonal and run off, then your tribe will do two things:
1) Swales are clever basins deliberately created to sculpt the land. The swale will stop the runoff of water and then soak instead and spreak underground and sweep across and so create a good lasting moist soil full of healthy bacteria counts to fix nitrogen. Doing this will ensure good yields while others suffer in non-rainy periods.

2) You will deliberately dig down and insert logs of wood and then bury them and mound up the soil. This is called Hugelkulture. It maintains a sponge in the ground and this plus the swales will result in very low water requirements. That means more drinking water. That means more washing water. It means more sanitation. It means better yields during droughts.


All of this and more are in my sig to save you all.