Typhoons and tropical storms have you thinking about how well you and your family are prepared for an emergency in Portland?
One of the most essential items in your emergency preparedness kit is potable water! Keeping enough water on hand for drinking and basic hygiene for your family during an emergency is one of the most important things you need to do, and should be the first item you add to your emergency preparedness kit. FEMA recommends that you store at least one gallon per person, per day. Consider storing at least a two-week supply of water for each member of your family (14 gallons/person) plus more for your pets.
The Richmond Elementary School PTA Emergency Preparedness Committee is excited to offer for sale pre-used, rinsed, BPAfree, food-grade 55-gallon emergency water storage barrels to bolster our community preparedness. Note: you must pre-order as we will NOT have any for sale on the day of the delivery. Barrel pre-orders will be open September 19th – October 15th. You must be able to pick up your barrel on Saturday, October 20th at Richmond Elementary School between 1pm and 4pm. Unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to store barrels for pick up on a later date
Barrels are available online at the Richmond PTA Store at https://mkt.com/richmond-pta or paper order forms may be printed out here and returned with payment (cash or check made out to: Richmond PTA) and placed in the red PTA Mailbox or mailed to Richmond PTA, 2276 SE 41st Ave, Portland, OR 97214 All orders must be received and paid for on or before October 15th. Questions: [email protected]
If you are unable to store this quantity, of water, don’t panic, just store as much as you can. Rigid 5-gallon containers are available in the camping section of many local stores as well as online, and have the benefit of being more portable than a 55-gallon barrel! (5 gallons of water weighs about 42 lbs) Have a tank-based water heater? If it is strapped (in case of an earthquake) and you can access it, it can provide you with potable water. Water from a hot tub or spa cannot be used for drinking but will be useful for personal hygiene.
For more information on finding alternative sources of water in an emergency please visit: https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/drinking/finding-other-sources.html