Dress rehearsal for the apocalypse

I will cheerfully admit to feeling a little smug that some months ago, I laid in an emergency supply of drinking water--a total of 16 liters, which at current rates of consumption should keep me in coffee and herbal tea for some time yet.

I took this step as a response to an emergency preparedness workshop at my local library, put on by the City of Vancouver to help residents understand how to prepare for an earthquake or what-have-you. Highly recommended, by the way.

The key things to understand, they explained, were

1. your apartment building probably won't fall down if it was built after 1965 (so sorry if yours wasn't!); &
2. you need to be able to provide for yourself during a period of perhaps a week when you may not have water or electricity, and when grocery stores are likely to be emptied out pretty damn quick by people less prepared than you, wise citizen.

There was more advice, of course, and lots of suggestions on simple things to do, but the one concrete step I took was to fill several empty 4 liter milk jugs with (tap) water, filtered through my Brita. I prepared the containers before filling them, by washing them vigorously and then rinsing them with a dilute solution of bleach. They've been sitting under my counter ever since, taking up precious space in my tiny kitchen.

So, I am vindicated. Several things strike me about the current situation:

• It's a pretty modest emergency, after all. I mean, my toilet still works, that's the main thing.
• In a city and at a time of year where water falls copiously from the sky on all of us, a problem with tap water is enough to provoke shoppers into fisticuffs over Perrier at Costco? How in God's name might we react when, perish the thought, the Big One hits?
• I handled this one OK, but boy, I am so not ready for anything more serious.
• Wow. Who knew what gets through a Brita water filter? I mean, what's in the water I can't see?

This may be a good excuse to elaborate the disaster plan a wee bit.

Nick Dobbing
Wovenland