National Preparedness Month Tip #3

Here I am with another tip. The disaster preparedness guidelines say that you should have one gallon of water per person per day. This should provide enough for drinking, cooking and the minimal amount of hygiene during an emergency. Using bottled water instead of gallon jugs is useful because you can pack them in corners and around other gear to keep your 72-hour kit smaller. Also, it's possible to swap out the bottles to maintain a fresh supply.

You might want to add some water purification equipment as well. The camping purification devices are small and very effective these days. Also a bottle of iodine tablets can make some drinkable, if not very tasty, water. Trust me the stuff doesn't kill you, I once was on an extended backpacking trip where the only water we had available was purified with iodine tablets. I can't tell you how happy I am that you can buy a purifier these days. Ugh... ;)

In other news I received a message from the local ARES group. They're setting up a shelter to receive refugees from New Orleans and they are asking for volunteers to handle health & welfare traffic and man the shelter. I volunteered to help.