Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Drain your water heater.
Unless you plan before an incoming storm, by filling
bathtubs and basins with potable water, your water heater will be the single largest
reservoir of potable water left in your home when the utilities go down, so conserve
this resource and use it wisely! Water heaters are supplied with a vent located near
the top of the tank and a drain near the bottom of the tank. Open the top vent (pull on
the little lever on the spigot) and drain the tank into containers as needed. If there is
dirt and sediment in the water coming out of the tank,
do not discard this water.
Sim-
ply allow the sediment to settle and drink the water off the top.
Caution:
Turn off the
gas or the electric power to your water heater before draining, or you will damage the
heater.
•
Shut off the utility water supply to your house if there's reason to believe the public
water supply may have been contaminated.
Otherwise, you risk contaminating the
usable water in your plumbing.
•
Drain the pipes in your house.
These typically hold a gallon or two of water, maybe
more, which can be drained into containers by slightly opening a high-point tap and
draining from a low-point tap.
Water Contaminants
“
Water systems face . . . challenges in some of the new, hard-to-kill bacteria that crop up with growing
frequency. Among the most feared is
Cryptosporidium
, the parasite that polluted Milwaukee's water
in 1993, killing 111 people and sickening more than 403,000. It was the worst case of waterborne ill-
ness in modern U.S. history. The city's treatment system at the time wasn't good enough to kill the
bug, which can evade conventional filters and is resistant to chlorine, most systems' main defense.
”
—Peter Eisler, “Powerful New Pollutants Imperil Drinking Water Supply,”
USA Today
, October 12, 1998
Important:
All surface water sources in the United States should be considered unsafe to drink
without treatment.
Just because water is clear, smells good, and tastes good does not mean that it is safe to
drink. When I was a child, I often went hiking in the mountains of New England. We drank
eagerly from all the sweet-tasting streams and creeks along the trailside. It was a treat to drink
from these unchlorinated, natural water sources, and we never gave it a second thought. Forty
years later, I will not drink from these same sources without first running the water through a
portable filter, chemically treating it, or boiling it to remove or kill organisms such as
Giardia
or
Cryptosporidium
. The water still looks and tastes the same, but these organisms can live in
clear, clean water. In the High Sierra of California, it is estimated that about 50 percent of the
