"Evacuate!” That was the word I awoke to on September 21, 1989 as massive Hurricane Hugo bore down on Charleston, South Carolina and my college campus. After two weeks of an impromptu furlough from fall semester I returned to Charleston and my alma mater to begin cleanup and to resume my sophomore year.    

The devastation was complete with buildings demolished, ancient trees uprooted and large scale power outages. But the one significant impact of the storm that I remember most was the tainted water. Due to loss of water pressure and damaged pumps, the water supply had been compromised. To combat the potentially harmful effects of the water, large quantities of iodine were added to the supply. The smell and taste permeated everything. It was always present from the showers, to our taps, to the instant food prepared in the college cafeteria. Nothing says home cooking like a helping of iodine mashed potatoes served with — you guessed it — iodine gravy. After a couple of weeks the water was deemed safe and it slowly returned to normal.    

As fate, destiny, personal decisions or just dumb luck would have it, I now live in Houston, Texas. I have also embraced the wonderful hobby of homebrewing, and am often reminded of those days in Charleston by the smell of Iodophor as I cleanse my brewing equipment.    

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Houston area was swamped with displaced residents of Louisiana and I volunteered to provide emergency communication support at the Astrodome. While there I witnessed donations rolling in from numerous organizations and businesses. The one that caught my attention was the water provided by Anheuser-Busch. They have a large brewery here in Houston and they canned drinking water and supplied it to the relief effort. This triggered an idea: if a large-scale brewery can use its equipment to supply water in a crisis, why can’t my little home brewery do the same. And so my family hurricane preparedness plan was thus amended.   

It has been 19 years since Hugo came ashore and I as I wrote this story I watched  24-hour coverage of a very large hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico named Ike. “Evacuate!” was being echoed once again, but fortunately (or not) it didn’t affect my area. Nonetheless, power outages and hurricane force winds were forecasted for my neighborhood. And yes, it has been said that we should be prepared for the loss of water pressure and possibly contaminated drinking water. It was time to invoke the hurricane preparedness plan.   

This is not a complicated process, it is simply re-tasking the brewery from providing beer to providing water. I begin by thoroughly cleansing one of my empty Cornelius kegs and the tap line. Once complete I fill the keg with drinking water and top off with a blast of CO2. I also clean and fill my two empty carboys with drinking water and seal them up. I clean and sanitize my racking cane and tube and it’s all set. The idea is simple: use the keg and CO2 to provide drinking water and replenish with the water in the carboys. The other commodity to take advantage of is my chest freezer that I use for lagering. I remove the temperature controller and set it to the coldest setting. I begin making ice using just about anything that will hold water then fill as many coolers as possible with the ice.   

Ike did not disappoint. Almost on cue the power went out once the winds began to pick up. It was a very long and nerve racking night with the house making sounds I have never heard before. We listened to the beating for about eight hours before it began to let up. Once again the devastation was complete. Roof shingles littered my yard, my backyard fence was gone and my pin oak tree in the front yard was practically touching the ground due to a two foot crack in the trunk. We heard the news that power could be out for as much as two weeks and that the city did lose water pressure. All residents were under a boil order if they were going to use the water. Of course having an electric stove would make this a bit difficult. Ah yes, the brewery to the rescue again, if it came to having to boil water we have my propane burner and stock pots to aid in the task.   

About a week after Ike made landfall, the boil order was lifted. All told we used about half the original keg leaving me with two carboys of perfectly good drinking water. What should an enterprising homebrewer do in such a situation? Why brew of course. I’m thinking a commemorative IPA or Ike Pale Ale.