Long, long ago in one of my many horrible experiences in call service, I brought this up to a co-worker. She turned to me, and in all seriousness declared that she had three months of food stored in the freezer. I asked what she would do if she lost power. Her response is completely fitting to the common perception of worst-case scenario survival: "I'll make due".
If you have no way of acquiring new resources, how are you going to make due once half of your stores go bad?
1.1 - Food
The first option is simple enough. The Canadian and American military sell surplus millitary rations through various retailers. Growing up and being part of the Canadian cadets, we would get most of the rations that had outlived their 20 year shelf life, much of which would spend the next ~5 years in the basement of our training facility. These are made to last, and are simple enough to get your hands on, Here's some links, courtesy of Amazon.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second, and much less preferable option is to keep a constant rotating store of canned materials. You can easily get most anything in canned or preserved forms these days, and most canned items last for at least a year or two. For safeties sake though, you should try and rotate items out at least once a year, or at least something each time you go get groceries. The best items for this are usually left up to your individual tastes.
The third, and best option however, is a combination of the above.
1.2 Water
As stated above, water is one of the most important resources you can have for survival. A decent sized person can survive several weeks without food, but at most you can only go a few days without water. So, what do you do when you run out?
Consider adding a large cold water resivoir in your basement, attached to the cold line. This will allow you to have a large store of water, and if you have a 60 gallon tank and use it sparingly, you can make it last 2+ months. But what happens when that tank runs out?
I'm you're still in your home, try draining your water tank. Be careful! The tank still has a lot of water pressure due to gravity, and water emerging from it will come out very fast. If used carefully, you can drain another ~30 gallons from your tank, giving you another month. After that, if you're desperate, consider draining your pipes for another ~3 gallons.
However, you need sustainability. Here, I shall reference you to a wonderful show made by the discovery channel called "The Colony", specifically season 1- episode 2. Here's a link to the entire first season:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This episode has a simple, easy to make charcoal and sand filter. This is a much similar technology to that inside of most industrial filters, although as you can imagine much more refined. My personal suggestion is to do a multi stage filter, with six or seven stages and finally running through a regular filter. The best product for this application, and my personal favorite, is the PUR filter. They are durable, and live up to most of the manufacturer's claims. if you're just using it as a safety mechanism at the end of your purification cycle, this filter will last forever.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
