Coming home from work, I noticed the big water utility truck at the side of the road, yellow tape, a big WATER EMERGENCY sign. Damn.
Got home, checked the tap - no water.
It is not a secret that repeated budget cuts, enacted so that the wealthy can afford a second jet to take them to their third island hideaway have resulted in a lack of maintenance of our infrastructure. A little review of history of ancient civilizations shows that most have collapsed, not because of invasion, but because of infrastructure problems, often related to irrigation. The canals silt up, no water, no food.
Politics and history, however, do not help with the current problem. I call the water department- no water expected for seven hours. I call the neighbors in my condo to alert them that there is no water expected for seven hours.
I check my supplies- I have six pint bottles of water, enough for the evening.
I cooked dinner, using a plant mister to wash vegetables, scraping carrots instead of scrubbing them, and making sure NOT to flush. The water came back on, only three hours later, and life went back to normal.
This was a wakeup call, more than an emergency. Lessons learned:
(1) Most emergency planning assumes that the population will have some warning. However, many emergencies provide no or very minimal warning. You wake up and smell smoke and run. You look out and see the tornado. You come home and turn on the tap and there is no water.
(2) Most of us store food, but the stored food needs water to prepare. Pasta, beans and rice are not very edible without cooking in water - and water is difficult to store.
(3) As much as bottled water is bad for the environment, it is the best way for the apartment dweller to store water. There is simply no room for a rain barrel. So, despite my dislike for all the plastic, I am going out to buy a flat of water bottles, unless someone has a better idea.