During 2008, floods did serious damage in many sections of the United States. People in the devastated areas had to deal with the loss of property and livelihood, and went without electricity and gas for weeks on end. Flooding can be really hard on the supply of fresh water, and it may become difficult to get water to drink or cook with. There are four things that could be in unclean water that anyone forced into a situation like this needs to think about: viruses, poisonous chemicals, bacteria, and parasites. During times like these you need to employ emergency water filters in order to clean up the water you use.

You probably already understand that drinking water filled with these contaminants could be dangerous to your health. We’ve all seen pictures of people in third world countries drinking from contaminated water sources and heard the gruesome statistics about the widespread illnesses that result. The people just don’t comprehend what they’re causing to happen to themselves. Here in the U.S., though, we should all be in the know about what we might be doing to our bodies if we ingest contaminated water and know that if water doesn’t look sanitary, it needs to be filtered before we drink it.

The human body contains a large amount of water, and that water must be replenished constantly. Thirst is Mother Nature’s way of reminding us we need to have a drink of water. However, if a disaster pollutes the drinking water, there must be some sort of emergency water purification plan in place to help get everyone through. Purification may be done by boiling the water, filtering it, adding chemicals, or some combination of all three.

A lot of people think that adding common household bleach to contaminated water will make it pure again and make it safe to drink and cook with. To some extent, this is partially true, because the chlorine in the bleach eliminates the microorganisms that can make us sick. Sadly, though, it can also kill the good bacteria that our bodies require in order to work properly. Due to this, it is important that iodine be used to chemically treat water. Iodine is a good portable water purification system to utilize for emergency water purification processes. Adding 3 drops to a quart of clear water or 6 drops to a quart of cloudy water will kill the bacteria and other contaminants making the water safe for humans to drink.

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