Owning a Water Filter Could Save Your Life When TSHTF

If you study the Survival Rule of Three’s you’ll see that water is near the top of the list.  As human beings it’s one of those elements we simply can’t live without.

It’s simple – if you don’t have water you will die.

But let’s say you do have water, but it’s dirty, impure, loaded with germs, or all the above.  After the super typhoon that just wrecked the Philippines I noticed in many of the stories that what people needed was food and water.  Flooding had contaminated all the water and lack of electricity made it nearly impossible to get water.

If you’re smart and you have the resources you can filter it with a bandana or some other make-shift rig and then boil it, which takes time and energy, or you can filter it for safe, quick access to that most needed item for survival:  clean water.

Enter the water filter.  The better water filters will even filter out germs and other small particles making just about any water safe to drink.

Let’s use the Berkey water filter as an example.  I have a Royal Berkey and this thing is awesome.  If there’s ever a disaster in my area that makes it impossible to get water from my well there’s a pond right across the street where I can get some.  Most times you’d turn your nose up at the idea of drinking pond water, but all I’ve got to do is walk across the street and fill up my five gallon bucket, bring it back to the house and dump it into my water filter.  The filter does its thing and voila!  Clean drinking water for my wife, two kids, and myself.  It doesn’t get sweeter than that.

Here’s a little blurb about that particular filter:

The Royal Berkey is a powerful system that purifies both treated water and untreated raw water from such sources as remote lakes, streams, stagnant ponds and water supplies in foreign countries, where regulations may be substandard at best.  Perfect for outdoor activities and a must in hostile environments where electricity, water pressure or treated water may not be available.

The Royal Berkey® system removes pathogenic bacteria, cysts and parasites entirely and extracts harmful chemicals such as herbicides, pesticides, VOCs, organic solvents, radon 222 and trihalomethanes.  It also reduces nitrates, nitrites and unhealthy minerals such as lead and mercury. This system is so powerful it can remove red food coloring from water without removing the beneficial minerals your body needs. Virtually no other system can duplicate this performance.

Constructed of highly polished 304 stainless steel, the system comes complete with two purification elements and utilizes the latest technological advances. This system has a storage capacity of about 3.25 gallons (12.3 liters) and when in use it stands 23” in height with a diameter of 9.5”. The upper chamber nests within the lower chamber for transport and stands only 15.25” in height.

Configured with two Black Berkey® purification elements the system will purify up to 4 Gallons (15.1 liters) per hour*. This system can be expanded to use four purification elements and is capable of purifying up to 8 Gallons (30.3 liters) per hour*.

It doesn’t have to be a Royal Berkey of course.  They have many other types of filters such as the Sports Bottle Water Filter, which I am going to order soon.

These filters do cost a little more; however, they are superior products.  And not only do they function wonderfully they are also damned attractive.  Most of the other water filters are no frills jobs and that’s fine, they do what they are designed to do, but the Berkey filters look nice sitting on your counter top.

I’ve taken mine in my camper when I wasn’t sure about the water coming out of the faucet or if there was no running water and it’s been a life saver.  Simply fill it up and it just works.

Do you remember the story about that town near Boston a few years back where some constructions guys broke a water main and it they put a “boil water” alert into effect?  People went crazy!  They mobbed stores looking for bottled water and there were fights over what was left.  And they still had electricity!  All they had to do was boil the freakin’ water and it would have been fine.

Imagine what would have happened if they didn’t have electricity?  Or water stopped running altogether and all they had access to was river and lake water?  Think there might have been a few riots over what water was left in the stores?

Do yourselves a favor and pick one of these filters up before the next big catastrophe or even the “big one” that knocks us off the map for awhile comes along.

Questions?  Comments?

Sound off below!

-Jarhead Survivor