One of the biggest dangers after a disaster is drinking polluted water. Sometimes the water is not polluted from the disaster. You can get sick from drinking your own stored water.  Water is the stuff of all life and it can grow bacteria quite fast.  After a disaster strikes our water purification systems can fail and many of us will be drinking bottled water or stored water.

You can store water in anything plastic whether it is small plastic bottles or 55 gallon drums. Old Fifty-five gallon) plastic drums are ideal if you have room to store them. These can be quite expensive if purchased new, but there are always used drums available if you search for them. I have purchased used drums for as low as $10 each from retail outlets, and for even cheaper on eBay or estate sales. Just be sure that if you buy sued drums that they have not been used to store toxic materials.

Glass is the very best but plastic water containers are the best. No matter what you do all plastics leech a bit of plastic into the water? Beverage bottling companies usually receive their ingredients in food-grade plastic drums that are perfectly suitable for water storage. If you are unsure about what was originally stored in your plastic drum, then use that drum for clothes washing, washing equipment and for flushing your toilet. I suggest that you use a large permanent marker to mark which water is best suited for drinking.

Many survivalists store water in jugs in their basement or garage but this water can go bad. To prevent storing a bad batch all the water that you store for an emergency should be rotated and replace every at least once a year.  Be sure to rinse any plastic containers that you are using as bacteria can lurk in the plastic. This can happen to water that has even been purified quite easily.

To keep your water safe to drink do what they do in the military. The shelf-life of stored water can be extended by adding a small amount of household chlorine bleach. Use an ordinary brand like Clorox) to prepare water for storage add 4 drops of chlorine bleach per gallon of water.  This is about one drop per liter. For larger vessels add one teaspoon of chlorine bleach per 30 gallons (4 cc per 100 liters). Never use bleach that contains a scent or other additives. Do not overdo it though. Too much bleach can hurt you and make the water smell bad.