I don’t know about a year, but I do know from experience that the three day requirement is laughable.
I have at least three months supply. Water is something you really need lots of in an emergency situation. You need drinking water, but most of all you need water for sanitation, flushing the johns, washing, cleaning up. Trying to sort through a disaster is bad enough, but not being able to wash is really disheartening. We store our washing water in five gallon water jerrys. Water for the johns is in five gallon buckets of any type. Drinking, food prep and clean up is in storage containers of food grade quality.
Figure on five gallons per day per person.
I have a well so I’m lucky there. I just can use a generator to pump it, but even then you have to be sparing because if the power is out, gas stations don’t pump and you can wind up with a generator and no gasoline to power it.
You can also buy, online, a five gallon bucket with seat and lid, liner bags and sanitary gel to place inside the bags for about $50. Works well when sanitation is gone.
And a plain old rotary phone or just one that isn’t digital to plug in. Cell phones don’t work when the power is out. The cell towers are out too.
“not being able to wash is really disheartening”
Yup.
Most supmkts carry these “bricks” of bars of soap, usually 8 to twelve bars, and they run 3 to 5 dollars. I have about 4 of them.
Good thing to have if you can’t get to a store shelf or they are out.
Never enough water.
I’m asking Santa for 50 gallon water container, MREs amd freeze dried food. Aiming for three months self sufficiency.
I think we’re going to need it.
How to store water is a concern. We always have the threat of hurricanes so I store baby wipes for “bathes” and cleaning up.
This is another good idea. I keep an old phone but haven't been able to convince others (as they've all given up their land lines, a mistake, I think) to do the same.
A three-day supply is anything but laughable if the cops come at midnight and tell you to leave immediately or face a flood or a brush fire. What do you grap then to carry along? -a 72 hour kit. Can’t happen? It happened twice here in one year.
Oh, and I agree that a three month’s supply of food and water are better and so is a one year’s supply.
About the water, if I’m storing it in clean 2-liter pop bottles, do I have to sterilize it to drink it?
Do they still make those water pumps that you operate manually? Would it be practical to have such a pump for emergencies? I figure it might be practical if you can pump for 5 minutes and get 5 gallons, it might not be practical if you have to pump the thing for an hour to get a few gallons.