Second Day After the Outbreak

Time frame: 2 Days after Outbreak
Phase: Self-Sufficiency

Now that you've established Containment around yourself and your group of survivors, you now need to ensure that those inside your safety bubble survive inside it. The survival rule of thumb is: 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. Since you've established shelter with your base, next task to tackle is water. Within a day of the outbreak, public utilities will probably still be running, but the question is, for how long? Assuming the workers responsible for bringing water into your city are infected and the water systems contained, your base should still get water for at least a few days without human interaction. Scour the building for large containers that can store water. Store as much water is possible in these containers.

As long as your water keeps flowing into the building, you should continue to use it while it lasts. This means keep everyone in the group hydrated, drinking 8-10 glasses of water a day. Also, utilize the running water for fecal waste disposal. Accumulation of this not only promotes the spread of disease, but may also attract nearby zombies because of the smell.

One should take note however, that if the particular zombie virus strain may be waterborne, measures should be taken to prevent infection by water. Since boiling the water may or may not prevent infection, one method for prevention of group-wide infection would be sample testing. Rather than drinking directly from the water line, have the group only consume water from the water supply. As one water container is emptied, it should be filled up from the water source. One person shall then be designated to drink the water and then placed in Quarantine. If the person doesn't turn, then the water is labeled "safe for drinking" and stored with the rest of the water supply containers.

If/When the water source runs dry, you will need to figure out how long the water will last. The minimum water requirement for replacement purposes, for an "average" person, has been estimated to be approximately 3 liters (3.2 quarts) per day, given average temperate climate conditions. Based on these numbers, you can calculate your total stored water supply based on the number of people in your group. This way, once this happens, you know how many days before the group needs to get a fresh source of water.

1 comment:

Doctor Spud said...

You're really good at this! Keep it coming!