I get a lot of questions about how much water we should store. Now, I could go on and on about water so I have decided to break it down into four parts: Survival Water, Portable Water, Water Storage, and Water Purification. This post will be dedicated to SURVIVAL WATER.

If you had to leave your home with nothing but what you could carry, push, or pull, what would you take? The first item (besides your family) should be your Emergency Prep Pack. The purpose of your Emergency Prep Pack is to help you survive until either help arrives or you can secure more supplies. The key word here is SURVIVE. What do you need in your pack to help you SURVIVE? Water will be one of your most, if not THE most, important item in your pack. So, how much water do you need to survive? Let me make a side note right here. In the past, we called our Emergency Prep Pack a 72-hour kit. The standard use to be that we needed a three-day pack of supplies, hence the name 72-hour kit. From past experience, we have learned that help may not, or most likely will not, be available in three days. The new standard is FIVE days. Instead of calling it a 72-hour kit, we simply call it our Emergency Prep Pack. It should contain everything you need to SURVIVE for FIVE days. Back to our topic at hand, how much water do you need to survive for FIVE days? Believe it or not, the daily standards were set by the U.S. Coast Guard. It was mandatory that ships crossing the ocean had food and water for at least three days for each crew member because in the event of any mishap or emergency, it would take three days for help to arrive. Their studies indicated that in order to SURVIVE, humans need to drink at the minimum 8 oz. of water per day. That is the standard we go by when packing water in our Emergency Prep Packs. Pack at least 40 oz. (8 oz. x 5 days) of water in your pack. I pack two 24 oz. bottles with a sport top in each kit for each member of my family. Remember that this is SURVIVAL water and is only meant to be lived on short term NOT long term. If your Emergency Prep Pack doesn't have at least 40 oz. of water in it, go right now and add more. It's a great feeling to be prepared!