Water Crisis Response 101

A how-to guide for you to better prepare for the next water disruption

It was a 'no-water' suffering last weekend. Many were caught unprepared by the unscheduled water disruption due to water source pollution: taps were dry, sinks were filled with unwashed mugs, plates, and bowls, soiled clothes were piling up the laundry baskets, toilets were in unpleasant state, cooking duties had to be put on hold until further notice.

Those of you staying at the affected areas in Klang valley, I am pretty sure you can identified with the scenarios above. If you are like me, feeling traumatized by the inconvenience and pain of water crisis for the past weekend, please read on to embrace the 'wartime' mentality so that you and your family can stretch and survive for any water disruption in the near future. Let me unpack with you this water crisis response 101 for our future reference and action.

For scheduled water disruption:

Activate water crisis response 101 within 24 - 72 hours (depends on notice given)

1. Store up as much water as possible using large pails or water containers with covers for washing, showers and toilet usage. You might need to do some calculations to figure out how many gallons of water needed for your household.

2. Store up sufficient filtered water for cooking purpose. You may need to get suitable water container with the built-in dispenser faucet to ease your food preparation work.

3. Store up some convenient-to-serve food like bread, biscuits, milk, cereals, eggs, etc. These food are easily prepared and without having to use up lots of water for washing up.

4. Pre-cook your meals and freeze them up. If you are too busy to cook, you may stock up some frozen ready-to-eat packed food from frozen food distributors like CP, Thalia, and Ratatoo. These frozen packed food would come handy to reduce the need of cooking throughout the inconvenient water cut season.

5. Turn on water rationing mode for your household. Inform and educate everyone in the house about the modified frequency and ration water usage for daily hygiene activities such as a small pail of water for shower, half a mug of water for teeth brushing, a dipper of water for toilet.

For unscheduled water disruption

Activate water crisis response 101 immediately

1. Maintain an inventory of these essential:

- drinking water 5 Litre (3 bottles for 3 days emergency)

- frozen packed food for 3 days

- convenient-to-serve food like bread, biscuits, cereals, milk, and eggs

Do check the expiry date of the above items, you might need to consume them before expiry date and replenish necessarily.

2. It is a must to have big water container with cover (12 - 26 gallon) and multiple pails at home. To avoid clutter, it is advisable to buy stackable pails and keep all into the biggest water container.

3. To ease the workflow of collecting water from water tanker and transport water to your house, pails will turn out to be a disaster. The full pail of water may end up half or less when you reach home. Water containers with bottle caps and strong handles are great for water collection. The suggested size of the water container is 5 Litre. No time for workout? Now with the frequent water disruption, everyone can do muscle workout! Make your next water crisis experience to be a great muscle toning workout. Just imagine the 5 Litre water containers as your weight bearing dumbbells when you transport them to home.

4. Turn on water rationing mode for your household. Inform and educate everyone in the house about the modified frequency and ration water usage for daily hygiene activities such as a small pail of water for shower, half a mug of water for teeth brushing, a dipper of water for toilet.

5. Modify your hygiene routine during the water disruption days. Consider using dry shampoo to wash your hair. Use wet wipes and hand sanitizer necessarily.

Conclusion

Water is life. Every living creature needs water for survival. None can live without water, from the smallest unit of human body - cell (60% of water) to the magnificent Mother Earth (71% of water). For the past decade, people staying around Klang Valley had been experiencing regular water disruption, so frequent that it has become a norm of life. Perhaps, it is high time for us to embrace the preppers mentality (survivalism). You and I can learn much more to be preppers, to make plan (Plan A) and back-up plan (Plan B) and back-up back-up plan (Plan C) to survive any situation or crisis, from water disruption to a pandemic.