How to Purify Drinking Water in an Emergency or Natural Disaster

It is important to know how to purify drinking water in a natural disaster. There are 3 basic methods.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

1. 

   In many large scale natural disasters, like flood, hurricane, earthquake, or anything that may disrupt or pollute your water supply, it is important to know how to purify your drinking water to protect your health.

2. The easiest method is to boil water at a cooking boil for 3 to 5 minutes. This will kill most microorganisms. The down side is it will not remove heavy metals or other pollutions, and will actually concentrate them. It is a very good thing to do with any water of unknown safety. It is important to find good water in any disaster as you can go without food for much longer than without water.

3. 

   Disinfection is the second method. A few drops of household un-scented liquid bleach will kill microorganisms and is not going to add to toxic chemical or heavy metal contamination. It will not remove them either. You should store water for a few days of emergency use. I have an article on how to do that safely as well.

4. The 3rd way to purify water is filtration. A good camping or emergency water filter can remove microorganisms and also toxic chemicals and heavy metals. Effectiveness vary by design, filtration medium and proper use. You should have a good portable filter set aside in any emergency home storage program. They are usually available at camping and sporting goods stores and from emergency food storage sources. There are probably links below and to the left of this article that can point you in the right direction.