Boil Water Advisory - Day Two

It's day two of the boil water advisory, and I almost had a panic attack this morning when the radio which was waking me up announced that Starbucks and Tim Hortons would not be open because they have no water. OH MY GOD, NO COFFEE!

What would I do? Good thing my wife is a genius; she had boiled some water the night before and was using that to make me my morning coffee. The world would be alright after all!

Truth being told, on my way into work this morning I noticed that many coffee shops were open, mostly the small independent ones. I suspect that they were up early this morning or late last night boiling water in great quantities in order to create a supply for the crush of caffeine starved Vancouverites they would face, never a pretty sight.

This whole incident (and it is still continuing, it may get worse) is an eye-opener. We are not at all prepared. As part of the many things I do that results in me being so scatter-brained, is that I volunteer with the North Shore Emergency Social Services, and I have taken training in disaster preparedness. Despite all this training my wife and I too found ourselves at Superstore desperately buying up the last case of nasty-tasting no-name Perrier rip-off water the other night. What would we do if this were an earthquake?

At lunch I am heading out to the sporting goods store to see if there are any water purifiers left, the kind that you use for camping. I have done a lot of camping and know that you can drink the most turgid water as long as you purify it to get rid of all the nasties, and in the end all you will be left with is brown water that tastes terrible but wont make you get "the trots". Let's see if I have any luck. I noticed one enterprising soul was selling his water purifier on Craigslist for $100.