Those that follow my Twitter/X posts know that I’ve recently posed the question, “What if we only have three months to Armageddon?” This is not hyperbole. We are playing a very real game of nuclear chicken with not one, but three nuclear armed nations. Russia, China, and North Korea (and maybe Iran) have developed nuclear weapons and for whatever reason, we believe we can attack and destroy these countries without risking their use. I for one have my doubts that the US and NATO can escape unscathed. There has been nothing but escalation and it has reached a point now that the slightest misstep, miscalculation, or strategic decision by one or any party could trigger rapid and uncontrolled escalation to a full nuclear war. The problem is that Russia can’t lose, and NATO must win. I don’t have a crystal ball, but it also doesn’t take Nostradamus to see that unless one side blinks, we are going to have a major war break out this year between at least NATO and Russia and I don’t see either side blinking. The war in Ukraine is existential to Russia. Russia cannot and will not lose this war. On the other side, despite it not being an existential threat, NATO will not accept a Russian victory and demands the full defeat and breakup of Russia. Somewhere between ego, incompetence, and the blind lust for total power, NATO has managed to make victory over Russia an absolute vital mission, which paradoxically means NATO will be annihilated. Look, despite all the rhetoric, even a fool understands that these two divergent realities cannot equally co-exist. One side must lose, and both have nuclear weapons. So, breaking this down to the Sesame Street level, NATO will escalate until Russia begins to lose. If Russia begins to lose, it will use nuclear weapons. That’s your reality, take it or leave it. Understanding this, it’s only a matter of time…just months before things massively escalate unless NATO blinks, and that’s completely ignoring everything else escalating with China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, and between Israel and pretty much the entire rest of the Middle East so you better be prepared. To get you there, I invite you to read my many preparedness posts on everything from EMPs to surviving a nuclear exchange as primers. This series of articles continues your education but is mainly focused on asking questions and pointing out issues many have not considered when it comes to things going drastically to hell in the near future. With that in mind, I want to talk a little bit about water first.
I spend a lot of time with folks from the preparedness world. Naturally, guns are a big thing, but oddly, they aren’t what’s going to get you through even the first week after a nuclear exchange. In fact, the things you see being marketed the most like food, shelter, medical supplies, weapons, and communications gear are not what you will need most. The truth is you could manage to still survive not having acquired any of the above beyond what you would generally find in a typical home if you had good knowledge and skills and a lot of luck. However, what you can’t survive without is water. Without water, you have about two days to live assuming you conserve your water and don’t overexert, which is not likely in an emergency situation. Let’s assume the time period is mid-September. Things are still pretty hot and dry when the nuclear exchange begins. Fires rage all across the world from cities to forests and all surface water is heavily contaminated with radioactive fallout. You will need water not just to drink, but to decontaminate and to extinguish massive fires. Unfortunately, you can’t drink suspect water and decontaminating with fallout water isn’t going to achieve the desired goal you are striving for. If anything, you may be able to use the water to fight fires, but damage to infrastructure would likely even prevent that use. So, where are you going to get safe water?
I think it is better to answer this by discussing what isn’t safe water. Unsafe water post nuclear blasts would include essentially all surface water to include rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and seas. Of particular importance to note is this includes virtually all municipal water sources. Unless you are absolutely certain your water is drawn from a subsurface aquifer, treated, filtered, and piped directly to your home, you must assume all public water is contaminated with fallout. This is a very bad thing considering the vast majority of the US and European populations draw their water from municipal sources. Remember big cities like New York, Chicago, and DC draw their water from nearby rivers and lakes. After a nuclear exchange, once the water already in the pipes is pushed through, everything coming out of the tap should be suspect. That said, it is worth checking to see what if any type of filtration system is used because fallout is big and actually relatively easy to filter out. Even a cheap Brita type water filter has been shown to effectively clean out fallout. As such, if your water source is being filtered, there is a decent chance it could be okay. That said, any filter that cleans the fallout from the water will be contaminated and will concentrate radioactive fallout in it as you filter more water.
So, if I can’t trust the tap water from any public source and all surface water is to be assumed contaminated until proven safe, what can I drink? The first source of water is anything bottled. Bottled water will remain safe to drink, but just make sure the bottle and cap are cleaned off prior to opening and consuming if there is any potential fallout dust on them. The other primary source of clean drinking water will be from wells and other subsurface aquifers. Yes, all of you countryfolk still on private wells are in good shape as long as you have backup power or can rig up and old school pump to draw up your water. So, if you aren’t amongst the minority with a well running on backup power or happen to be sitting on a Costco trailer load of bottled water, you can filter your water as previously mentioned. Any water filter for backpacking or even a water filtering pitcher is suitable as long as you are careful not to cross contaminate and handle your filter as radioactive waste after running contaminated water through it. Outside of that though, you are probably screwed. Remember, drinking water is the most important use for water, but you are also going to need water to decontaminate, wash, and extinguish fires. Water will be in very short supply, and many many people that survived the initial blasts will soon die from either radiation sickness from drinking contaminated water and exposure or dehydration. This will not be short term. In fact, it will be horribly persistent and over time, will continue to contaminate water sources long after the hottest radioactive particles have decayed (the hottest isotopes have decayed after two weeks), so there is not a quick fix one can hope for. This will be a silent killer long after the bombs have detonated, and the fires have burned out. There simply is not enough bottled water in the country to sustain even a single major city after a nationwide collapse has occurred and it will take days for first responders to set up aid stations. This is why it is so critical to have a plan for ample clean drinking water. Don’t be the poor bastard that managed to survive the blasts only to die a few weeks later from acute radiation sickness caused by ingesting fallout contaminated water.
As for questions, I know someone is going to ask if they can’t just use some type of radiation detector to see if the water is contaminated? Well, yes and no. It may detect some radiation, but the water is actually capable of insulating less active radioactive isotopes potentially giving you a false negative on your test. If you then drank that water, the radioactive particles would then begin to bombard your internal tissues and kill you slowly from the inside out. This is a horrific death and not something you’d want to risk. Someone might also be wondering about other sources of water not discussed like pools, toilet tanks, and water stored inside such as some buckets. Treated pool water is never okay to drink and unless it was an indoor pool, it would be exposed to fallout. As for water inside a building, it may need to be purified and could be okay so long as it wasn’t drawn from a municipal surface source. That said, if you immediately filled buckets, your tub, and anything else that would hold water in the immediate minutes after a blast, you will be fine so long as it was covered indoors and not “dusted” by fallout. Simply shutting doors and windows actually provides good protection from fallout, but if you are in a hot zone, the radioactive glow or shine from ground contamination on and around the house will penetrate walls and still irradiate you unless you are deep underground or a good 15 stories up in the center of a high rise with that many more stories above you providing good stand-off vertically and horizontally from any ground glow. Distance and dense mass are what mitigate the effects of radiation…the more the better.
Not to be too long winded, the point here is you need to plan for water if you are serious about preparing for a nuclear war. My recommendation is to live in a home where your water is drawn from a well and the well can be run on backup power. It’s even better if you also have a manual backup pump not requiring any electricity. That’s simply not possible for most people so make sure you have some bottled water stockpiled. The easiest way to do this I have found is to just buy a water cooler and have bottles delivered weekly. Keep on hand at least two times your weekly use and just constantly cycle through the bottles. You can buy neat shelves for this that allow you to vertically stack your five-gallon jugs. This ensures you have three weeks’ worth of fresh potable water at any given time. Finally, make sure you have some filtration capabilities. For this, a good water filtering pitcher with plenty of disposable filters is best. An expensive system like a Big Berkey is excellent for filtering all kinds of nastiness out, but the problem is the filters will soon need to be replaced and they are far too expensive to routinely swap out.
Okay, this concludes your short course on water. Please feel free to send comments or questions to me and as always, please like, subscribe, and follow me on Substack and Twitter.
Till next time,
D.t.Y.