Tornado Saftey

My heart goes out to all those suffering loss due to the recent tornadoes in Missouri and the mid-west. May God comfort those who are in so much pain.

The recent tornado disasters, however, do bring up an important aspect of emergency preparedness: tornado safety.

If you live in an area that is prone to tornadoes, you absolutely need to pay attention to what is going on and make the necessary preparations before the tornado sirens go off. Here are some things you can do to prepare now.

Alert Zone
Get in the alert zone. You absolutely need to place yourself in a position where you will get alerts in time to take cover. Tornadoes come up very fast and there may be little warning before they hit. Here are several ways to do this. I normally recommend a combination of methods depending on your lifestyle and personal situation.

1. Sign up for text alerts on your cell phone. There are a number of services that provide text alerts. These alerts are useful when you are not near your weather radio.
• The best and most reliable service I have found (although not free) is iAlert.com. 
• Weather.com used to provide free text alerts, but it looks like they discontinued that service. You can still sign up for e-mail alerts and use your cell phone's e-mail to text e-mail address.
• Emergency Email and Wireless Network is great free (ad supported) alert service.
2. Get a weather radio. This is the most reliable way to get alerts. Get the Midland WR-120 desktop weather radio and put it in your bedroom or somewhere you will hear it at night when you are sleeping. See my more extensive weather radio recommendations on my main site.
3. Watch or listen to media outlets. Most local media outlets (TV and radio) will broadcast severe weather alerts.
4. Don't ignore the tornado sirens. If you live in an area that has tornado sirens, take action when the alarm is sound.

Designate a Shelter
Designate where you will go in each location you normally spend time at. Looking for an appropriate place during a tornado is not what you want to be doing.

I have many other recommendations on my Tornado Safety page, which I encourage you to read if you live in a high-risk tornado zone.

Recycled 55-gallon Water Barrels

The plastic, food grade, 55-gallon water drums are an economical and convenient way to store larger quantities of water. The problem is that I have yet to find a local source for new drums and shipping on 55-gallon barrels is a outrageous. The barrels themselves, new, run around $40-50. But shipping is normally more than the barrel itself, pushing the price up around $100.

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with paying $100 for a 55-gallon water barrel. It's actually a reasonable price per gallon for water storage. But I just have a problem paying that much for shipping unless I absolutely have to!

So, when a friend tipped me off on a local source for used 55-gallon water drums, I decided to give it a shot. The barrels were only $15 each and there was no shipping charge because it was a local pickup.

The problem with used barrels is that they had something else in them and need to be cleaned out before use. Depending on the contents, it may be impossible to completely remove all the taste and it will taint your stored water with traces of unwanted flavor.

In my case the previous contents was balsamic vinegar. I got two barrels. There was a bit of product left in them. One of them rinsed out really well and looked quite clean. The other had quite a bit of mold growing in it already.

Since the barrels were used, my first step was to clean the barrels and get them ready for the treatment procedures outlined on my water storage page. First, I rinsed out the barrels with water. Then I let them soak overnight to soften up the hard crusty deposits left in them from the previous contents. Then I treated them with a bleach solution to get rid of the mold.

Next I followed my guidelines under Water Storage Treatment on my Water Storage page (wash, sanitize, fill, treat, cap).

Time will tell whether or not the balsamic vinegar taste will leach into the water at all. Has anybody ever used water from recycled 55-gallon drum? What was the previous contents and how did the water taste after being stored for a long period of time?

I thought it was worth the risk of trying used barres since the cost was so much less than new.

Interesting Water Cooler Hand Pump

I just ran across a cool hand operated water pump that you can attach to the top of a 5 gallon water cooler jug. If your water storage plan includes these jugs, this could be a great alternative to using a water cooler or crock to safely use your water. (Tipping them over isn't a safe way as the risk of spilling is too high!)

5 Gallon Bottle / Jug Manual Drinking Water Hand Pump

Has anybody used one of these before? Do they work well?

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