Get ready for when there is no water in the tap.
If you have space, and can buy a water tank, please do.
Water for Personal Use
Everyone is expected to have enough water to get through 7 days on their own. How much you need depends on the disaster lifestyle that you have planned for yourself.
WREMO (Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office) provides the guideline, below. (Amounts are per person, per day). Remember to include every family member, boarders/guests, and pets in your water calculations:
3 litres of water per person, per day will be enough to:
Drink, Cook & Wash Hands ONLY
20 litres of water per person, per day will also allow for:
Brush Teeth, Wash Dishes, Sponge Bath, Clean Buckets, First Aid & Water for Pets.
There is no expectation of water being used to Shower, or Wash Clothes.
Here is Wellington Water’s cool infographic showing how water is used every day.
Wellington Water’s full guide to storing water and using bleach in water in an emergency.
Store your water in a cool dark place. Every 6 – 12 months, replace the water and relabel it with the date. It is a good idea to store your water in at least two different places in your house.
Plastic milk bottles are NOT SUITABLE for storing water. It is impossible to get them clean enough for storing clean water. (If you think this is not true, you could do an experiment. Warning: you will be grossed out by the resulting rancid water).
There are several brands of Life Straw available. The Life Straw works by filtering water at the source, it is mainly targeted at trampers, or where there are unclean water sources.
Public Water Supplies
There are a small number of larger water tanks dotted around the city. The one pictured is at Te Whaea, where there are two 10,000 litre tanks.
The current thinking is that Wellington Water will activate Community Water Stations (CWS) from Day 8 after an emergency event. You will take your container to the CWS to receive your allocation of water. The nearest Community Water Station for Mt Cook is at 80 Hanson Street, Newtown, a few doors south of Newtown Countdown.
Buying a Water Tank
The 2nd Treasures shop at the southern landfill sells 200 litre tanks for a little over $100 dollars. This price has been subsidised by the Council. It works out at 7 litres a day per person, for a week, for a family of 4. This is still a modest amount of water, but at least you get to brush your teeth!
There are lots of commercial water tanks on the market. There are different shapes, sizes and tank capacities to suit all situations – from a 500 litre urban tank, to 30,000 litre farm tanks. A commercial tank could cost roughly between $200 and $2,000 for an emergency water supply.
A good place to start investigating the commercial water tank options is at Devan Tanks, they profile water tanks from several suppliers.