It is time to include some water into your 72 hour kit. On average you will need a gallon of water per day, which equals 3 gallons in a 72 hour period. The amount of water can be reduced for ages (a child will probably not need an entire gallon) but I don’t like to skimp on water. My family could stand to be a little hungry (not without complaining about it :)) but they can’t be thirsty. I cannot plan the “perfect” disaster when we would use our 72 hour kits. Will it be in the middle of summer and 100 degrees? Will we have cousins at our house and then have to share kits with extra people? So I prefer to have the complete 3 gallons.
I also realize that my 2 year old can barely carry one small bottle of water so 3 gallons would be impossible. There are a few different solutions that I have come up with for my family. Every kit has at least 1-16 oz bottle of water in it all the way up to 4 bottles (that is about the limit my 10 year old can carry with all the other items from his kit). My husband and I carry 4-6 liters each. I know you are doing the math and that doesn’t add up to 21 gallons of water for my family. Here are some other ways I store my water. I also have a rolling carry-on size suitcase that I have packed with water and other things that we would share as a family. This way I can also put packs of children who are tired if necessary and it is moveable. I also have our 72 hour kits stored by our water storage which are filled 2 liter soda bottles. I can grab a couple of those to carry with us in a pinch.
If you include water bottles purchased at a store that are sealed or other packed water, you don’t need to rotate as often. The water doesn’t go rancid as fast as if you are including water in a bottle you cleaned and filled with water from your tap. I rotate the water in my 72 hour kits every 2-3 years.
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