My One Week Full-Blown-Disaster Style Experiment to Cut Down Water Use by 1stMarineJarHead
Water (or should I say lack of water) has been in the news a lot recently, including on the OP. The Western United States is suffering a mega-drought while Brazil is experiencing the worst drought in almost a century. Droughts aren’t the only thing threatening our water supply. There was also a Florida water supply hack.
So, I decided for one week I would do everything I could to reduce my personal water usage. Things like brushing my teeth, washing my hands, cooking, cleaning, etc. I used the following SHTF assumptions to enact a realistic event:
- It has NOT gone all MadMax-like. No, my senior citizen neighbors have not come over and shot the wife and me to take our things. No MZBs marauding the countryside, raping and pillaging.
- Likely no fuel. I will hang up the ATV keys and tend to the livestock manually. I have to hump water in two 5gal buckets out to them. Every. Day. That is about six buckets a day in total. ( FYI, a gallon of water weighs 8.33lbs. So a 5gal bucket weighs 41.65lbs. )
- Walking the dog, hauling water to the livestock will simulate the amount of activity that will have to be done in a SHTF situation. It has got to get done, SHTF or not.
Before I give you the details of how my experiment went, here’s my personal experience with water shortages.
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Courtesy of the USMC, I Have Been to Some Bloody Hot Places
In boot camp, water was the lifeblood of USMC Recruiting Depot, Paris Island (my beloved Island), South Carolina.
When I vacationed (aka: deployed) to Afghanistan for a year, the country was experiencing a drought, more so than usual. An estimated quarter to half a million people left their homes searching for someplace with fresh water. We saw cholera outbreaks as too many people gathered around a single water source and some yahoo decided (or was ignorant) to defecate in that water source. A minor humanitarian crisis and IV hydration solutions prevented many people from dying.
We had a few reports of villages going to war with neighboring towns over access to water. War as in AK-47s, PKM (medium machine guns), RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades). Those incidents were few and far between, but they did happen.
Then We, On Base, Had a Minor Water Shortage
It seems some imbecile did a drone strike inside of Pakistan and did not have the courtesy of a heads up to the Pakistani government. In response, Pakistan shut down our use of their port to bring in supplies. Navy Sea Lift Command and Air Force Air Mobility Command had to scramble to re-route supplies in-country for two weeks.
Water rations were put in place. I got two 1.5L bottles of water for a sponge bath, and brush my teeth with, a day. The showers did not work. Some of the commodes and urinals did not work. The smell was, well, the smell.
