not a drop to drink!

After an exciting and dramatic wind and rain storm on Wednesday that knocked out power for a lot of people, uprooted trees, and made buildings collapse, we are now in the third day of a boil-water advisory here in Vancouver. Most of the outlying suburbs have had their water deemed safe, but alas, we are not among the lucky ones (though I count myself lucky to not have had to live without electricity). As soon as I heard about the advisory on Thursday, I went out and bought the last two 2-gallon water jugs in the supermarket near Megan's school, but I didn't realize at the time that we were in for the long haul, and by yesterday after lunch, there was a scarce supply of water available anywhere. Productivity all over the city ground to a halt as the Starbucks stores closed their doors, unable to guarantee decent-tasting coffee thanks to their water system which pipes straight into the coffee machines.

Now, I know I said this is a "boil water" advisory so you may be wondering why I and others don't just boil our water. Well, the water is not contaminated with bacteria so much as with dirt. Yes, that's right, it's a lovely brown colour and when I step in the shower every morning it smells like I'm bathing in mud. Even if I boiled this stuff for an hour I would not drink it!

Calum and I were among the lucky ones, not working or otherwise occupied during the afternoon so I was able to phone around until I found a place that had water for sale. The guy up at Safeway told me they had a few flats of water that had just arrived from Culligan, so I dropped everything, drove up there, and managed to grab four five-gallon jugs. PHEW! In case this problem lasts a few weeks like some media sources are predicting, I bought a bunch of juice, too, to try and convince my kids to drink something other than water.

This makes me realize not only how lucky we are that we can usually rely on clean, safe water coming out of the taps, but also how unprepared we are for an earthquake or other natural disaster. I am going to be taking earthquake preparedness a bit more seriously and start stocking up on supplies in the next few weeks.