Water Locating

How To Find Water

I know a lot of like-minded people will be caught in towns and cities, when the SHTF (Stuff Hits The Fan).
It may be scary, to think about trying to find enough water, to sustain you, until you reach your safe haven.
All most people know, is to go turn on the faucet, and out comes the water. 
When the SHTF, the city and town pumps won’t work any more, to pump water to the water towers that supplies water to the faucets! 
Everyone will be trying to get as much water from their faucets as possible.  Within hours, the local water tank will be empty, and all anyone will get from their faucet, is a few drips!
Forget the faucet!  Don’t let the false sense of security, the faucet gives you, keep you from getting outta Dodge!
Don’t wait, until all you can get from the faucet is a drip!  Get out of town!  Get out as soon as you can!  Get out like you planned!  Grab that bugout bag and leave! 
There is water out there, along the way!  You just have to know where to look!  
I will tell you how to find water, in just about any type of terrain in this country.  But first I want to make sure you have the right stuff for water, in your bugout bag.
Here are the water items, all bugout bags need:

1). A canteen
2). 2 cups of charcoal (renewable along the way, but start out with it)
3). A fold-able shovel
4). A bandanna, socks, or even spare underwear
5). One or more of a back pack water filter, filter straw, filter sports bottle with extra filters.
6). A couple of Shamwow rags
7). A big knife, or machete!
8). Drink size plastic bottle (At some point, you will be cutting the bottom off, but save it. You may need it. Also save the lid.)
9). 2 or 3 Space blankets
10) Paracord
 
I know your bugout bag isn’t supposed to weigh more than 25% of your body weight, but you need the things in the list.
Your water items will not add that much weight, and water is a survival need!
Carry all these items, in your bugout bag, and you can get water, in all sorts of ways! 
I want to deal with number 6 on the list first because this was my daughter’s idea.  This is an ingenious idea!  Use the Shamwows.  
Tie these Shamwow rags around your ankles when there is dew on the weeds.  Stop now and then to wring the water into the plastic bottle!  Ingenious!  Yes?!! 
It takes about 20 minutes of walking, when the dew is heavy, to get 1/8 cup of water. 
Or lay them on the dew covered ground for a few minutes, move them, and wait again, move again, until soppy enough to wring out.
Sopping dew water from tree leafs, abandon cars, roofs, etc., works too.
If you are in a dry climate, and there are cactus, use your knife or machete to chop the green off the cactus.  Sope up the cactus juice with the Shamwow.  Dig the cactus roots.  Squeeze out liquid and drink.  Use leather gloves when doing this because the needles hurt like all get out! 
Wild grapevines will ‘weep’, when the bark is chopped off, so you can use the Shamwows.
Put a Shamwow in any dirty water puddle.  Cut the bottom off the plastic bottle, stuff the bandanna or sock into the neck, pour in about 1/2 cup charcoal. 
Wring out the Shamwow into the filter you just made.  Let it drain into the canteen.
If mud is sticking to your boots, as you walk, you can get water to drink.  Dig a hole, at least one foot deep, and two feet wide. 
Put the Shamwow in the hole. Wring it into the filter, then into the canteen.   This takes awhile for the water to accumulate, but you will get water.   
Any time you need water, and it starts raining, even a little, stop in a safe place.  Use the paracord to tie the four corners of the space blanket on anything strong enough to create a water catch mitt.  Pour the water through the filter, and into the canteen.
If you are using a tent, and it rains, you can make gutters out of the space blankets.
Dig a trench, around the sides and back of the tent. Fold the blankets, lengthwise, then stuff them into the trenches, overlapping them on a down hill slope.  Make sure they are tucked under the bottom of the the tent walls, to catch every drop possible.
Dig a deep hole at the lowest gravity point, at the end of your gutter.  Line this hole with a space blanket.   Make sure the gutter end of the other space blanket drains into this catch hole. 
Dip out the water with a mess cup, big leaf, or even a hat. Pour the water through the water filter and into the canteen. 
Always check ditches for water, as you travel, but use caution, if you must travel covertly, or under cover of darkness.  Where there are ditches, the more likely you are to run into people.
In any terrain, where there are slopes and hills, always go to the bottom, of where two slopes or hills meet.  There is a better chance you will find water there.
Please use common sense, if getting water from ponds, water troughs, and the like.   Of course always filter the water before you drink it, but there may also be a dog guarding its property there!
There will most likely be water left in abandoned rural house toilet tanks, and water heater tanks. 
These rural houses, if within fifteen miles of a city, with a population of 20,000 and more, will be abandoned.  Their occupants, ‘relocated’.
Most rural homes, use electric pumps for their wells, but if you can find the well, it may have a hand pump on it.  If no hand pump, but you can find the well, quietly remove the well cover.  Scavenge a bucket, and use one or two paracords, to get water.
I would use this method, to get water, only as a last recourse.  Mostly likely, no one will return to these abandoned properties, but they may be ‘watched’.
Desert Water.  I know this will gross you out, but it works, and makes clean, safe water to drink.  Here goes…
During the day,when the sun is shining, pee in a sandy spot.  Shove a mess cup, down into the middle of where you peed. 
Now cut a small piece of space blanket.  Poke a hole in the middle. Lay it over the container, and shove it in enough to make a catch mitt. 
Now put the empty plastic soda bottle over top. Make sure the lid is on it.  You have just now created a solar water distiller!  Drink the water in the container, in about six hours.  (Please educate yourself on how to make this.  A simple net search, with the term, ‘how to make a simple solar water distiller’, will take you to one of the instruction sites.  Pictures are usually provided to illustrate the method.)
Keep an eye out for Cattails.  They always have their roots in water, even if it is just mud.  Use the Shamwow hole method, if it is just mud.  
If the Cattails have pollen on them, eat it.  If Cattails are only about two feet high, grab and pull!  Eat the sweet, white end.  If it is safe to build a fire, grab a few dry Cattail heads.  They make excellent fire starters!
Keep an eye out for Willow trees. These trees grow by water.  Also grab a handful or two, of leaves, before you go.   Chew six leaves well and swallow, for a headache. 
Pound three Willow leaves with two rocks, place on a wound or cut, then bandage, clean and change every four hours.  This same pounded juice can be rubbed on sore, trail weary muscles and feet, or on arthritic joints. 
The same pounded Willow leaves, and/or juice can be taken for a fever.  Take every four hours.
The places where Cattails, and Willows grow, will not only attract you for water, they will also attract wildlife. Consider them your wilderness convenience store and pharmacy!  Download the many herbals available, for free, on the net.  Other edible, and medicinal plants also grow in these places.   Also download documents on how to make simple snares, and bow and arrows.  The Willow trees can provide you with the wood to make bows and arrows, if you can stay in one spot long enough.  The bow an arrows can help you get bigger game, attracted to the water.
If you can’t stay around the Cattails and Willow trees, longer than to get a few winks of sleep, set traps to catch small game while you sleep.  Rabbits are nocturnal, nutritious, and yummy!  Rats and mice are nocturnal.  They taste disgusting, but they are nutritious.  
Green corn stalks are juicy!  A corn field is good cover to rest, and drink the juice from the stalks.  Peel the outer green, to get to the white inside.  Chew this for the juice.  Spit out the dry stuff, and repeat until the thirst is quenched.
You can eat about 1/4 cup of raw corn, when it is soft and the stalks are green.  Any more than 1/4 cup will give an adult diarrhea.  That would not be a good thing. 
Instead, grab what you can carry, and cook later, when it is safe to light a fire.  Leave the husks on the ears. Just lay them on the outskirts of the fire to cook.  Turn them every now and then, so they won’t burn.   
A word of caution:  Keep an eye on children and adults who are hyperactive, after getting moisture this way.  If stealth is an issue, them getting hyperactive, could be a problem!  Corn stalks are full of sugar!  Also be cautious with diabetics. 

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