Water Safety and Sanitation During Hurricanes

When you are preparing for a hurricane to hit your home and you plan on staying there instead of evacuating, the most important thing that you need to worry about is your water supply. Even though water damage to your home after the storm is over can be a real headache to have to deal with, the water damage that contaminated sea and sewer water can do to you and your family is even more dangerous. You might be able to repair the water damage to your home with money, but drinking or coming into contact with contaminated water can lead to serious illness and even death in some cases.

You should have a large amount of bottled water on hand at any given time if you live in a flood or hurricane prone area. The number of gallons that you have on hand should be enough for every person with you to have one gallon of water a day for at least a week or two. Keeping water purification tablets on hand is one very important thing that will help you if you happen to run out of bottled water for any reason. Chlorinated bleach can also be used to purify any of the contaminated water that you come across. If the water is cloudy, you can filter it through cloth until it is mostly clear. After that, you can use about 1/8 of a teaspoon of chlorinated bleach to treat a gallon of water. Leave this for at least 30 minutes before you attempt to drink it. This will make sure that all the bacteria and viruses in the water have been killed.

Unfortunately, you cannot trust that the water that comes out of your faucet during a hurricane is safe to drink. Flood waters from the sea and from the sewers can contaminate your local water treatment plants and cause the water in them to become undrinkable. You should never drink tap water until your local government assures you that it is safe to drink.

If you have children in your home, do not let them play outside in flood waters. Even if it gets up into the 80’s and 90’s in temperature, the worst thing that you could do is let the kids play in the water, especially young ones that do not know any better than to drink it. Toys that come into contact with the water need to be disinfected with bleach or other chemicals, but this is only for non-porous toys. Stuffed animals and other items like this must be thrown away immediately.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Water Damage Miami and
water damage restoration in atlanta companies.