Don’t Wash Your Hands?

The chemical spill contaminating Charleston's water supply should be a cautionary tale for everyone about the need to have drinkable water stored for emergencies. Even if you have a lake at your back door, you should not rely solely on purifying water in a disaster. It could become contaminated with something that your filters or even distillation can’t clear.

But this post is not about emergency water supplies. In Charlston, people could use city water for flushing toilets. However, they were told not to use it to wash. Think about that. Did people use their limited drinking water to wash their hands after visiting the restroom? And if they did, did they have a system so that dirty hands did not contaminate the water bottle that was used?

More generally, health experts expect a rise in flue cases in the Charleston area, because people were not able to wash their hands as often.

Having a good supply of alcohol-based hand sanitizer in your emergency preparations would give your family a giant advantage in such a situation. Read more about why you need at least 60% alcohol sanitizer in this CNN article.

If your water supply was cut off or none was available in case of evacuation, would you have a “handy” way to keep your family healthy?