ELI5. After a hurricane if everyone had a “life straw” could they drink the ground water?
In: Biology
Let’s put it this way. The more you can do to sanitize your water, the less likely you are to get sick from it.
The lifestraw is a filtration device, and is going to be useless right quick if you’re trying to pull muddy or oil laden water through it. So you’d want to first collect your water in a clean container and give it a day or so to sit. And pour off the top and bottom layers that collect, so you get as much clean water as possible.
Then, if it’s clean enough, you could filter it. Or you could use something like chlor-floc, a military water sanitization product that contains a deflocculating agent. This will cause dirt and other particles to fall out of suspension and to the bottom of the container.
Then maybe you want to filter it.
And if you wanted to be extra sure you could also treat it with chlorine or iodine or potassium permanganate or something similar. But better and more accessible is just to boil it. You don’t need to boil it for a certain amount of time; just bring it to a boil and that ensures it’s been at a high enough temperature to kill anything in there that might make you sick.
You want your water clear, and you want your water dead.
Oh- and if you’re dealing with saltwater, you’re in a tough spot indeed. In that case you’re going to need a desalinating device which are either extremely expensive and complicated, or it means distilling the water, which is going to take equipment, time, and fuel.
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