Our neighborhood message board is having this same discussion. The only rational reason is that people want bottled water so they won’t have to drink from water fountains at work. Okay, semi-rational - you could fill up a water bottle at home and bring it in.
We boiled water for 8 months when we lived in the Congo, and that water was worse than anything we’re likely to see. The only time anyone got sick was when my mother ate a salad at a restaurant which was washed with untreated water.
In my case, it’s because I realized I didn’t have spare water on hand in case of an emergency that DID affect water supplies, so I decided to fix that, because why not?
Really hard water here in the AZ desert, I won’t use tap water in the coffee maker, but I drink it and have refillable jugs for carrying and freezing in the summer.
Those of you puzzled by photos of empty store shelves have NOT been anywhere around here (DC metro). 2 weekends ago I was at the grocery store, which was well stocked with most things - but the TP aisle had largely been wiped out and the bottled water aisle was a bit picked over. When I went to another store late this past Friday evening, the entire store had been cleaned out of fresh fruit, most fresh veg, and pretty much every shelf stable food including canned food. I did not look at the TP or water aisles.
Yeah, I grabbed one case of bottles that trip 2 weekends ago. We have perfectly safe tap water (taste isn’t great for drinking but that’s what the Brita and in-fridge filters are for) but there’s just something in the lizard brain that says “HARD TIMES COMING STOCK UP NOW”. I’m telling myself that at that point, I was still considering going to Vermont to help my daughter move, and pre-bottled water would have avoided some contagion opportunities…
Brita Filter. Cheaper, better for the environment.
I have Culligan Water delivery once a month. I get 5 of the 5 gallon bottles, that go on top of our water machine, that lives in the kitchen. We won’t drink the town water, because it smells very strongly of bleach (Chlorine). We buy spring water for our snake. The parakeets, and cats, get our bottled water, as well. The dogs get the town’s tap water, but we filter it through a Brita filter.
I never buy bottled water, even when times are “good.”
But even when times are bad I don’t buy it. We are on a well. So as long as we have grid power, we have water. And if we lose grid power, I simply need gasoline, as I have a (makeshift) whole-house generator.
If the only problem with your town water is the chlorine, then if you run out of your Culligan, leave your tap water sitting out for a while and the chlorine will probably dissipate. --though if they’re using chloramines and not just chlorine, that apparently doesn’t work.
But the Culligan sounds like a much better system than lots of little bottles of water, anyway – plus which, AIUI, Culligan re-uses the containers.