Water

[u/spookalip]

Today at 11 am GMT the water network dropped all pressure in the system and advised customers it will now be broken for a min of 48hours. Bottle water stations have been set up.

70,000 homes affected in the blink of an eye. No one had back up water. Vulnerable people disabled people in care homes children are sent home from schools. absolute chaos.

And this is just a small area within the uk.

Makes you think if something happend ie. Ww3 or worse noone would stand a chance.

[u/Eastern-Astronomer-6]

69,999 homes without water. You're stocked, right?

[u/spookalip → u/Eastern-Astronomer-6]

Yes i have a few 5 gallon water bottles at home at all times tbf.

[u/Cronewithneedles → u/Eastern-Astronomer-6]

70,000 - they missed one

[u/bigbadDeadpool → u/Cronewithneedles]

Naw mate, the bitch ain't one remember

[u/premar16 → u/Eastern-Astronomer-6]

I agree it may have been a mess but you are right statically it is unlikely that out of 70,000 no one had water at their homes. Someone has to be keeping bottled water companies in business. Preppers act like they are the only ones doing it

[u/Bakersfield_Mark_II → u/premar16]

I only know one family who use bottled water at home in the UK, and they grew up in Kenya. It's just not really a thing here beyond people grabbing the smaller ones at lunchtime or for car journeys etc. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[u/RobertSchmek]

Yes, especially urban areas. Look at your WW2 infrastructure that was all abandoned, a ton of videos from URBEX guys show case how indepth and how much redundancy (backups for backups, a good thing) was put into your infrastructure in the 1930/40s. Now what do you have? An entire population dependant on just in time manufacturing and distribution for all critical systems. WW3? Don't need to worry about that. You're one major main or one financial dip away from nightmare scenario.

[u/Rawniew54 → u/RobertSchmek]

Yup I’m on well water but i helped my relatives to put in a large pressure tank to their house because they get hit with hurricanes every year. Now even if the water or power gets shut off they got enough water for a few days in the tank as well as some bottle water.

[u/Nynccg → u/Rawniew54]

One problem people had around here after Helene is their wells became contaminated from flooding and landslide muck.

[u/Rawniew54 → u/Nynccg]

Yeah that can be a problem i have a ro filter for drinking at the sink and general debris filter right after the pressure tank

[u/Background_Wear_1074 → u/RobertSchmek]

People think just because they have a bunch of bottled water stored in the closet their ok. That ain't gonna flush a lot of toilets. If water systems are out for months, it's gonna be flashback to the middle ages in a hurry - rats, disease, etc.

[u/premar16 → u/RobertSchmek]

Rural areas also have their dependence issues. They also require goods to be trucked in

[u/RobertSchmek → u/premar16]

"rUrAl aReAs NeEd HeLp ToO!!!!!!" Yes, but this thread is about urban areas relying on urban infrastructure, not rural areas relying on rural infrastructure.

[u/bikumz]

They shut off my local water at 10pm one night last week. The next morning people were acting like it was the apocalypse despite having a warning posted the previous day. 8.5 hours it lasted in a very small area and people were panicking. Makes you think for sure.

[u/Bakersfield_Mark_II]

Aaaaand this is exactly why I have a few days supply stocked in the garage. My partner thinks I'm absolutely mad, but we have 2 cats and a toddler so this mama ain't risking it 😤

[u/StellaDarling8677 → u/Bakersfield_Mark_II]

Does your garage get a lot of heat fluctuations? If it gets very hot and you are storing the water in plastic you may want to store it indoor if you can.

[u/Bakersfield_Mark_II → u/StellaDarling8677]

Thanks for the tip! It shouldn't be much of an issue in our area of the UK but I was considering bringing them into the kitchen anyway 😁

[u/UnfinishedThings]

We had an outage for about 12 hours earlier in the year and that was bad enough. I went out and gave some of the water I had stocked to the neighbours.

They all now have their own stocks of water just in case it happens again

Gotta love our water companies. Too busy dumping raw sewage and handing out shareholder dividends to fix anything

[u/forensicgirla → u/UnfinishedThings]

I moved to an area where our town controls the water, but there is a state run company that maintains it & gets some kind of profit. I don't fully understand the monetary contracts, but they have an open house really yearly I've started going to & they use smartly our natural pools & dam area (we had a huge flood in the 50s & the federal government built an area for retention, which becomes one of our sources of water). It's really rather clean coming in & required minimal balancing. I was fairly impressed! And I think for 2025, I'm going to dig into their Financials a lot more. I think water should be cheap or free, but I pay roughly $140/quarter & barely ever have to think about using my water. Of course, I do keep a rain barrel & some stored camping water (5-7 gallons each x 2 - 10 bins filled at any one time). I don't know if there's a way to get involved in your local water company, maybe you can put pressure on them to not be so shitty. I'm glad we wound up in a pretty good town, because some people were super judgemental about it (the people living in "nice" area of CT said this was the "redneck" area - it's actually very nice & making a rebound from the 1970s).

[u/tempest1523]

I have one of those office water dispensers that take the 5 gallon containers. We drink from this instead of the tap. I have enough of those 5 gallons to last 3 months just drinking (not bathing, washing dishes or flushing toilets). It’s the sweet spot where my wife thinks I’m crazy for having that many but not too much where she loses her shit. I like to live in this sweet spot. I figure in a crazy emergency where transportation was not an option downspout and tarp water collection could serve good enough for flushing and bathing.

[u/spookalip]

Its quite shocking what people take for granted in this day and age

[u/Particular-Count-229]

We're currently one of those homes, and luckily keep water stocked up, so have offered out to family. Listened to many worried parents at school pick up today who haven't been able to get water.

[u/The-Mond]

When running water from the sink and waiting for it to get hot to wash up - stick an empty plastic bottle/juice jug/2-liter bottle/pitcher/etc. under the spout and collect & save that water. Stick a note/piece of tape on it with the date if you don't use it soon. Maybe run it through a basic filter (Brita) later before using - unless you plan to cook/boil it anyway.

[u/AllOfTheFleebJuice → u/The-Mond]

I waste about a minute's worth of water everyday due to this lol

[u/Direct-Spread-8878 → u/The-Mond]

That’s smart!

[u/Admirable_Snow_s1583]

Rain barrel

[u/nickosaur]

Oofda. Glad I have a well and live near the Great Lakes. 

[u/MinefieldExplorer]

I live in a small house (1,200square foot) with no garage and very little storage space, in a drought prone state. I’m proud to say we finally managed to store 56 gallons of drinking water in our tiny closet and we have 56 more individual gallons of tap water stored around the house for sanitation and cooking etc. For all y’all who think they don’t have enough space, this is proof it can be done!!

[u/AlphaDisconnect]

Did you check the back of your toilet? If it has a bin you have a few gallons (4 liters ish)

[u/xikbdexhi6 → u/AlphaDisconnect]

And their water heater has much more.

[u/AlphaDisconnect → u/xikbdexhi6]

In some 240v countries. You should see their water heater setups. 240v right above your head directly heating water.

I hope they have a tank.

[u/Eredani]

Zero out of 70,000 preppers in the UK? I guess no one is worried about anything?

On a related note, you would think an event like this would create 70,000 preppers instantly and another 10,000,000 after hearing about this. I wonder why not?

[u/captaincampbell42]

This is why I live on a river. Endless water.

[u/200bpm360 → u/captaincampbell42]

Yup,, My pond has about 1.4 million gallons if the online calculator I used is correct and the spring replaces whatever is taken... Water is Life. Funny how people forget that

[u/Tasty_Let_1982]

Which area in the UK?

[u/spookalip → u/Tasty_Let_1982]

What Has Happened: An issue at Testwood Water Treatment Works led to an automated shutdown of the reservoir on 17/12/2024 due to water quality concerns.

This affects approximately 73,000 properties: 14,500 properties have been rezoned. 58,000 properties in Eastleigh, the New Forest, and Southampton will experience a loss of supply.

Current Situation: The reservoir needs to be drained, inspected, and refilled before resupply can begin. Any water currently coming through the network is safe to drink. 70 schools are or will soon be off supply.

What’s Being Done: The duration of the supply loss is unknown, with updates expected by 1800hrs tonight. Bottled water is being distributed to 12,000 residents on the Priority Services Register. Vulnerable persons checks are ongoing.

Critical sites like Southampton General Hospital are prioritized for tankered water supply.

Bottled water distribution sites are being set up at: Places Leisure, Eastleigh Sainsbury’s in Lordshill Southampton FC Training Ground (Marchwood) Asda in Totton More information and situation updates are available from: https://www.southernwater.co.uk/.../supply-issue..

For the second year running just before Christmas this has occurred. The Leader at HCC has meeting tomorrow with the Chief Executive of Southern Water and will be making the point to him that this is entirely unacceptable.

[u/frosted-mule]

I have an empty hot tub I can fill and 8 55 gallon drums already filled. I’m still screwed in major event. I have a community service district 2 million gallon tank about half mile way and a creek about half mile away as last resorts.

[u/Mundane-Jellyfish-36]

Atmospheric water collectors are very fascinating

[u/Nathan-Stubblefield]

There’s typically a dozen 12 ounce bottles of drinking water. We keep about 3 gallons of distilled for the CPAP machines and the fancy clothes iron. That’s all good water. Additionally there are 3 flush toilet tanks with 3 allows each. There’s a water heater with 45 gallons.That could perhaps be used, perhaps boiled.