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As a prepper, the last thing you want is to turn on the faucet and not have any water flow from it.Before this happens to you during a long-term water disruption, it’s best to learn about several ways to find and harvest more water for your stockpile.

Some options include installing a well with a solar-powered pump on your homestead and learning how to harvest rainwater.(h/t to PrepperWebsite.com) Why do you need alternative strategies for a water shortage?

You can stock up onenough bottled water so your family has enough water to drink during a long-term survival disaster, but how do you know when you have enough water?

According tominimum recommendations, you should have at least one gallon of water per person. It is also best to keep a three-day supply on hand at all times.

However, if the weather is hot you may need twice as much water. This still doesn’t include the water you need for washing, flushing the toilet, watering the garden or for your pets and livestock.

During the first day or two without running water, you can find water in places like toilet tanks, water heaters and swimming pools. But after these supplies are depleted, locating water will be an ongoing effort.

You should also remember that even if these alternative sources are available in your area, other people will be heading for the same water sources when SHTF.If you don’t want to fight other people just to get more water for your family, you should use other means to get the water you require.

Survival scenarios also highlight the need toplan ahead and get prepared beforehand, especially if you have a home garden and livestock that will require water.

If you are concerned about where to get water when SHTF, below are some tips on how to get more water when your supply runs out: Install a well with a solar-powered pump

People who live inrural areas use well water, which is ideal because it is often a reliable source of water, except when there is no electricity to operate the pump.

To avoid this issue, you can get asolar-powered pump for the well in your homestead.If you have a well, consider getting a solar-powered pump before disaster strikes so you can rest easy knowing that you can still access the water in your well even during a power outage.

While this option is the most expensive on the list, it is also one worth considering since it offers the most reliable supply of water. (Related: Prepping tips: How to survive with a limited water supply.) Harvest rainwater

Even non-preppers can learn how to harvest rainwater, and this prepping skill will come in handy when you are experiencing a disrupted water supply.

You can either splurge on a qualitysetup with gutters feeding into a storage tank, or you can choose something simple like a rain barrel with a filter. Whatever your budget, you need to storethe collected water in a covered container to prevent mosquitoes from using the water as a breeding ground.

Covering the rainwater you gathered can also help prevent the water from evaporating.

If your house doesn’t havegutters, you can use the channels in your roof that divert water into a stream off the rooftop. Simply arrange containers underneath that area to catch the rainwater.

For example, you can get yourroofer to add diverters that will direct water off the front of your roof so you can gather the rainwater in a tank or rain barrel when it rains. Use swales

Before SHTF, you can also use swales to storerainwater in your home garden.

Swales are water-harvesting ditches. However, unlike drainage ditches that cut across the contour of the land to speed water along, swales are built “on contour” to slow water down and sink it into the earth.

Swales built on contours collect water and help to recharge groundwater tables. They help to control erosionand are designed to convey excess rainwater into their ditch-like interior. Swales hold the water until it is gradually filtered through plants and soil back into the area.

You don’t need special equipment to build a swale. Get a shovel, a pick and some stakes, then be ready to use a bit of elbow grease. But if you are not strong enough to dig a swale yourself, you can make things easier by borrowing or rentinga backhoe.

The size of your swale will depend upon the volume of water your area receives during a storm.

When choosing where to dig the swale, look forthe lowest point of your property. Dig deeply enough so the storm runoff collects inside the ditch.

Pile the soil up around the trench as you excavate to create the berms, orthe raised sides of a swale that contain filtering vegetation and porous soil.The recommended rule is three feet horizontal to one foot vertical.

You need to grow plants to help keep the mounds in place and to filter and use the stored water. When choosing plants for the swale, choose varieties that can withstand different conditions.

If you live inareas with little annual rainfall but have sudden rainstorms that drop huge volumes of water at once, choose plants that are drought tolerant but grow well in sudden but infrequent heavy rains.

If you’re not sure what to plant in the swale, grownative plants that are already adapted to the area’s changing climate and fluctuating rainfall. During the first year of their installation, the plants will require additional water to help them establish.

After some time, the plants in the swale should grow well with only the captured water, except in severely dry periods.

Amend the soil in the swale ifit is nutritionally poor. You can also add a ground cover of pebbles or rocks in the interior of the swale.

The pebbles or rocks will help further filter water, hold in the soil and can be piled to provide check dams that will help slow the flow of water.

Keep plantings dense to discourage weeds and choose plants that are at least four to five inches tall and resistant to flooding. Build a condensation trap

When SHTF, you can also gather water usinga condensation trap.

You can build a condensation trap by digginga pit and placing a receptacle to catch water. Use branches angled down towards the receptacle to direct the dew and frost that gathered on the branches overnight into the catchment container.

Modern preppers have it easier because you can useplastic sheeting instead of branches to divert the water.

This method of collecting water can help provide water for a couple of animals, but unless you build a lot of condensation traps, you won’t get enough water for a large home garden and your whole family.

Check online for detailed instructions on how to create condensation traps before SHTF. Learn about dryland farming

The principles of dryland farming can help preppers and homegardeners who want to learn how to use as little water as possible and keep the moisture in the soil longer.

Knowing how to use the least amount of water will be useful in a watering emergency. This can help you make the most of a limited water supply, especially when dealing with a long-term water outage.

Somedryland farming techniques that might help include mulching heavily and making liberal use of rotting wood chips in your garden beds. You can also pair this method with rainwater collection.

Dryland farming also makes use of drought-resistant, region-specific crops so your home garden needs less water.

Preparing ahead of time ensures that you and your family cansurvive a long-term water supply disruption. Look into techniques like rainwater collection and building swales to make sure that you have enough water for your whole family, livestock and your home garden when SHTF and water become scarce.

And if disaster doesn’t strike, some of these techniques can help you save a bit of money on yourwater bill as you add more water to your stockpile.

Visit Preparedness.newsfor more tips on how to conserve your water supply when SHTF.

Watch the video below tolearnhow to create a DIY rainwater collection system.

This video is from theSHTFPrepping101 channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories:

4 Tips to preven emergency water from freezing.

Water supply basics: How to use ponds as an emergency water source.

Water supply and prepping: A beginners guide to rainwater collection.

Sources include:

PrepperWebsite.com

GardeningKnowHow.com

Brighteon.com
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This man survived Hiroshima bombing – and has a stark warning for us all

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This man survived Hiroshima bombing - and has a stark warning for us all

Toshiyuki Mimaki is exhausted when we meet him.

The 83-year-old sinks into his chair, closes his eyes, and asks us to keep it brief.

But then he starts talking, and his age seems to melt away with the power of his stories.

He is a survivor of Hiroshima’s atomic bomb, a lifelong advocate for nuclear disarmament and, as of last year, a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

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‘Why do these animals like war so much?’

But now, on the 80th anniversary of the bombing, he comes with more than just memories – he has a message, and it is stark.

“Right now is the most dangerous era,” he says.

“Russia might use it [a nuclear weapon], North Korea might use it, China might use it.

“And President Trump – he’s just a huge mess.

“We’ve been appealing and appealing, for a world without war or nuclear weapons – but they’re not listening.”

Read more:
The ‘destroyer of worlds’ who built the atomic bomb

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Trump issues nuclear sub order

‘I didn’t hear a sound’

Mr Mimaki was three years old when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.

It was the first time a nuclear weapon had been used in war, and it’s remembered as one of the most horrific events in the history of conflict.

It’s estimated to have killed over 70,000 people on the spot, one in every five residents, unleashing a ground heat of around 4,000C, melting everything in its path and flattening two thirds of the city.

Horrifying stories trickled out slowly, of blackened corpses and skin hanging off the victims like rags.

“What I remember is that day I was playing outside and there was a flash,” Mr Mimaki recalls.

“We were 17km away from the hypocentre. I didn’t hear a bang, I didn’t hear a sound, but I thought it was lightening.

“Then it was afternoon and people started coming out in droves. Some with their hair all in mess, clothes ragged, some wearing shoes, some not wearing shoes, and asking for water.”

Hiroshima Survivor Toshiyuki Mimak, 83, speaks to Sky News
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Toshiyuki Mimaki

‘The city was no longer there’

For four days, his father did not return home from work in the city centre. He describes with emotion the journey taken by his mother, with him and his younger bother in tow, to try to find him.

There was only so far in they could travel, the destruction was simply too great.

“My father came home on the fourth day,” he says.

“He was in the basement [at his place of work]. He was changing into his work clothes. That’s how he survived.

“When he came up to ground level, the city of Hiroshima was no longer there.”

‘People are still suffering’

Three days later, the US would drop another atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, bringing about an unconditional Japanese surrender and the end of the Second World War.

By the end of 1945, the death toll from both cities would have risen to an estimated 210,000 and to this day it is not known exactly how many lost their lives in the following years to cancers and other side effects.

“It’s still happening, even now. People are still suffering from radiation, they are in the hospital,” Mr Mimaki says.

“It’s very easy to get cancer, I might even get cancer, that’s what I’m worried about now.”

-FILE PHOTO MARCH 1946 - This general view of the city of Hiroshima showing damage wrought by the atomic bomb was taken March 1946, six months after the bomb was dropped August 6, 1945. The 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and the end of World War II is August 1995
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This image shows the city in March 1946, six months after the atomic bomb was dropped on 6 August 1945. Pic: Reuters

Tragically, many caught up in the bomb lived with the stigma for most of their lives. Misunderstandings about the impact of radiation meant they were often shunned and rejected for jobs or as a partner in marriage.

Many therefore tried to hide their status as Hibakusha (a person affected by the atomic bombs) and now, in older age, are finding it hard to claim the financial support they are entitled to.

And then there is the enormous psychological scars, the PTSD and the lifelong mental health problems. Many Hibakusha chose to never talk about what they saw that day and live with the guilt that they survived.

For Mr Mimaki, it’s there when he recounts a story of how he and another young girl about his age became sick with what he now believes was radiation poisoning.

“She died, and I survived,” he says with a heavy sigh and strain in his eyes.

He has subsequently dedicated his life to advocacy, and is co-chair of a group of atomic bomb survivors called Nihon Hidankyo. Its members were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024.

Pic: Reuters
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The city is marking 80 years since the blast. Pic: Reuters

‘Why do humans like war so much?’

But he doesn’t dwell much on any pride he might feel. He knows it’s not long until the bomb fades from living memory, and he deeply fears what that might mean in a world that looks more turbulent now than it has in decades.

Indeed, despite advocacy like his, there are still around 12,000 nuclear warheads in the world in the hands of nine countries.

“In the future, you never know when they might use it. Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, Israel-Iran – there is always a war going on somewhere,” he says.

“Why do these animals called humans like war so much?

“We keep saying it, we keep telling them, but it’s not getting through, for 80 years no-one has listened.

“We are Hibakusha, my message is we must never create Hibakusha again.”

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The chilling document that traces nuclear weapons back to Britain – and the threat we now face

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The chilling document that traces nuclear weapons back to Britain - and the threat we now face

Eighty years ago today, an American B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

It was the dawn of the atomic age, but the birth of the bomb can be traced beyond the deserts of New Mexico to Britain, five years earlier.

A copy of a hand-typed document, now in the Bodleian library in Oxford, is the first description of an atom bomb small enough to use as a weapon.

The Frisch-Peierls Memorandum was written by two nuclear physicists at the University of Birmingham in 1940.

Frisch-Peierls Memorandum
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The memorandum is the first description of an atom bomb small enough to use as a weapon

Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls don’t feature in the film Oppenheimer, but their paper is credited with jump-starting the Manhattan Project that ultimately built the bomb.

Both Jewish scientists who had both fled Nazi Germany, they built on the latest understanding of uranium fission and nuclear chain reactions, to propose a bomb made from enriched uranium that was compact enough to be carried by an aircraft.

The document, so secret at the time only one copy was made, makes for chilling reading.

The Frisch-Peirels Memorandum
Frisch-Peierls Memorandum

Not only does it detail how to build a bomb, but foretells the previously unimaginable power of its blast.

“Such an explosion would destroy life in a wide area,” they wrote.

“The size of this area is difficult to estimate, but it will probably cover the centre of a big city.”

Radioactive fallout would be inevitable “and even for days after the explosion any person entering the affected area will be killed”.

Both lethal properties of the bombs that would subsequently fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing around 100,000 instantly and more than 100,000 others in the years that followed – most of them civilians.

Read more:
Hiroshima survivor’s stark warning
The ‘destroyer of worlds’ who built the atomic bomb

The US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945
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The atomic bomb was dropped by parachute and exploded 580m (1,900ft) above Hiroshima

‘The most terrifying weapons ever created’

Those bombs had the explosive power of around 16 and 20 kilotonnes of TNT respectively – a force great enough to end the Second World War.

But compared to nuclear weapons of today, they were tiny.

“What we would now term as low yield nuclear weapons,” said Alexandra Bell, president of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which campaigns for nuclear disarmament.

“We’re talking about city destroyers…these really are the most terrifying weapons ever created.”

Five square miles of the city were flattened
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The atomic bomb flattened Hiroshima – but is much less powerful than modern nuclear weapons

Many of these “high yield” nuclear weapons are thermonuclear designs first tested in the 1950s.

They use the power of nuclear fission that destroyed Hiroshima to harness yet more energy by fusing other atoms together.

Codenamed “Mike”, the first test of a fusion bomb in 1952 yielded at least 500 times more energy than those dropped on Japan.

Impractically devastating, but proof of lethal principle.

Variants of the W76 thermonuclear warhead currently deployed by the US and UK are around 100Kt, six times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

gfx still from Clarke explainer

Just one dropped on a city the size of London would result in more than a quarter of a million deaths.

The largest warhead in America’s current arsenal, the B83 has the explosive equivalent of 1.2 megatonnes (1.2 million tonnes of TNT) and would kill well over a million instantly.

gfx still from Clarke explainer

But modern intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are designed to carry multiple warheads.

Russia’s Sarmat 2, for example, is thought to be capable of carrying 10 megatonnes of nuclear payload.

They’re designed to strike multiple targets at once, but if all were dropped on a city like London most of its population of nine million would be killed or injured.

gfx still from Clarke explainer

If that kind of power is incomprehensible, consider how many nuclear warheads there now are in the world.

Nine countries – the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel – have nuclear weapons.

Several others are interested in having them.

The US and Russia have around 4,000 nuclear warheads each – 90% of the global nuclear arsenal and more than enough to destroy civilisation.

map from Clarke explainer

According to analysis from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China us thought to have around 600 warheads, but has indicated a desire to catch up.

Beijing is believed to be building up to 100 new warheads a year and the ICBMs to deliver them.

Five more nuclear powers, including the UK, plan to either increase or modernise their existing nuclear stockpiles.

The nuclear arms race that created this situation was one imagined by Frisch and Peierls in their 1940 memorandum.

Given the mass civilian casualties it would inevitably cause, the scientists questioned whether the bomb should ever be used by the Allies.

Chinese soldiers simulate nuclear combat
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Chinese soldiers simulate nuclear combat

They wrote, however: “If one works on the assumption that Germany is, or will be, in the possession of this weapon… the most effective reply would be a counter-threat with a similar bomb.”

What they didn’t believe was that the bomb they proposed, and went on to help build at Los Alamos, would ever be used.

Devastated by its use on Japan, Peierls disavowed the bomb and later campaigned for disarmament.

But that work is now as unfinished as ever.

Non-proliferation treaties helped reduce the expensive and excessive nuclear arsenals of Russia and the US, and prevent more countries from building nuclear bombs.

Russian air force crew member oversees an instrument panel on board a Tu-95 nuclear-capable strategic bomber
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A Russian airman on a nuclear-capable strategic bomber

‘Everything trending in the wrong direction’

But progress ground to a halt with the invasion of Ukraine, as nuclear tensions continued elsewhere.

“After all the extremely hard, tedious work that we did to reduce nuclear risks everything is now trending in the wrong direction,” said Alexandra Bell.

“The US and Russia refuse to talk to each other about strategic stability.

“China is building up its nuclear arsenal in an unprecedented fashion and the structures that were keeping non-proliferation in place stemming the spread of nuclear weapons are crumbling around us.”

A White House military aide carries the so-called nuclear football as U.S. President Donald Trump boards Marine One.
Pic: PA
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The US president is always in reach of the ‘nuclear football’ , a bag which contains the codes and procedures needed to authorise a nuclear attack

‘New risks increasing the threat’

The world may have come closer to nuclear conflict during the Cuban missile crisis of 1963, but the fragmented and febrile state of geopolitics now is more dangerous, she argues.

Conflict regularly flares between nuclear armed India and Pakistan; Donald Trump’s foreign policy has sparked fears that South Korea might pursue the bomb to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat; some states in the Middle East are eyeing a nuclear deterrent to either nuclear-wannabe Iran or nuclear armed Israel.

Add to the mix the military use of AI and stressors like climate change, and the view of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is the situation is more precarious than in 1963.

“It’s more dangerous, but in a different way,” said Alexandra Bell. “The confluence of all these new existential risks are increasing the threat worldwide.”

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Bill and Hillary Clinton subpoenaed in Jeffrey Epstein probe

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Bill and Hillary Clinton subpoenaed in Jeffrey Epstein probe

The US House Oversight Committee has issued subpoenas for depositions with former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton relating to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

The Republican-controlled committee also subpoenaed the Justice Department for files relating to the paedophile financier, as well as eight former top law enforcement officials.

Donald Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein‘s crimes, claiming he ended their relationship a long time ago.

Trump and Epstein at a party together in 1992. Pic: NBC News
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Mr Trump and Mr Epstein at a party together in 1992. Pic: NBC News

The US president has repeatedly tried to draw a line under the Justice Department’s decision not to release a full accounting of the investigation, but politicians from both major political parties, as well as many in Mr Trump’s political base, have refused to drop their interest in the Epstein files.

Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, and since then, conspiracy theories have swirled about what information investigators gathered on him and who else may have been involved in his crimes.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee initiated the subpoenas for the Clintons last month, as well as demanding all communications between former president Joe Biden’s Democrat administration and the Justice Department about Epstein.

The committee previously issued a subpoena for an interview with Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who had been serving a prison sentence in Florida for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. She was recently transferred to another facility in Texas.

Mr Clinton was among those acquainted with Epstein before the criminal investigation against him in Florida became public two decades ago. He has never been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.

Mr Clinton previously said, through a spokesperson, that while he travelled on Epstein’s jet, he never visited his homes and had no knowledge of his crimes.

Read more:
All we know about Trump and Epstein’s ‘friendship’

This is a rare escalation

The subpoenaing of former president Bill Clinton is an escalation, both legally and politically.

Historically, it is rare for congressional oversight to demand deposition from former presidents of the United States.

Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and accomplice, had already been summonsed.

But the House Oversight Committee has now added Bill and Hillary Clinton, several former Attorneys General and former FBI directors to its list.

It signals bipartisan momentum – Democrats voting with Republicans for transparency.

The committee will now hear from several people with known ties to Epstein, his connection with Bill Clinton having been well-documented.

But the subpoenas set up a potential clash between Congress and the Department of Justice.

Donald Trump, the candidate, had vowed to release them. A government led by Mr Trump, the president, chose not to.

If Attorney General Pam Bondi still refuses to release the files, it will fuel claims of a constitutional crisis in the United States.

But another day of Epstein headlines demonstrates the enduring public interest in this case.

The subpoenas give the Justice Department until 19 August to hand over the requested records.

The committee is also asking the former officials to appear for depositions throughout August, September and October, concluding with Hillary Clinton on 9 October and Bill Clinton on 14 October.

Although several former presidents, including Mr Trump, have been issued congressional subpoenas, none has ever appeared before members under compulsion.

Last month, Mr Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to release information presented to the grand jury that indicted Maxwell for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.

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