Monday, September 05, 2005
- Turn off your cellphone. Reserve your battery power as much as possible. If you must have it on, turn down the screen brightness, turn off vibrate, turn down sound, turn off blue tooth.
- To recharge a cellphone with ordinary batteries, cut the phone charger's power supply cord near the charger. Strip the ends of the wire. Start with a 1.5v battery. If this isn't enough to start the recharging display, add another 1.5v battery. If that's not enough, add yet another 1.5v battery. If the cellphone requires 3v, two 1.5v batteries will work. If the phone requires 4.8v, three 1.5v batteries will work. Start low and add batteries.
- If three batteries don't work, perhaps the batteries are backwards. Turn them the other way and start again with one battery, and then two, and so on.
- If the cellphone system is overloaded (you can't make calls), use text messaging. Add the phone number of a friend who lives outside of your region to your cellphone's contact list.
How to Purify Water
- If the water is cloudy, strain it. Take a tall plastic water bottle, cut off the bottom, invert it to make a funnel, and stuff it tightly with clean cotton cloth, paper towels, etc. Strain the water over and over until it is clear.
- Disinfect the water. Use regular, unscented Clorox liquid bleach. Four drops of Clorox in one quart of water. Use an eyedropper or a straw. Shake the water. Let it stand for 30 minutes. The water should have a slight chlorine odor. If not, add four more drops and wait another 30 minutes. Do not use crystal chlorine (for pools). This is poisonous.
- Purify only enough water for 48 hours.
- If you can boil the water, let boil for at least one minute. This removes bacteria and microorganisms from water, but it won't remove poisonous chemicals. In floods (such as New Orleans), refineries and chemical plants were flooded and many chemicals were released into the water. If the water has a chemical smell (not the chlorine), don't drink it.