Zombie Contingency Plan: Manila (Part 4)

III. UTILITIES

You may ask, why should you should concern yourself with utilities during the zombie apocalypse? In fact, utilities will play an important concern of your Defense Ground with regard to water, electricity (power generation and supply) and communication (including the Internet).

Water may be present in the water pipes a few months after the zombie apocalypse. But afterwards, when the water stations have been left unmanned, it's certain that potable water will become a precious commodity (especially in a tropical country like ours). Gathering water bottles from supermarkets and convenience stores will be one stop-gap measure but it would be better if you can commandeer the equipment of those water filtration shops that sell bottled water. With the equipment, you can filter your own drinking water.

Certain apartment buildings and condos have their own water tower where they store emergency water (in response to those waterless years in the '90s). Determine which buildings have these. Some houses have their own water towers as well. Another option to consider are swimming pools. Drain these pools of water (which has chemicals) then let it fill up, either via hose (if there's water still coming from the pipes) or when it rains. With this reservoir of water, you can now use your filtration equipment to make potable water.

With regard to power generation, most of the buildings have their own emergency generators (also in response to those electricity-less years in the '90s). Find out which ones have these generators, determine which need gasoline to run, and which buildings have a nearest gasoline station to siphon gasoline from. However, be warned that the profligate use of electricity such that your defense ground (i.e. your building) becomes so well-lit, it might as well be a neon arrow pointing at you, saying to zombies, "eat me" or to fellow human scavengers, "attack me".

With your emergency power available, you can now use telecommunications equipment like cell phones, radios and the internet to gather news on the status of the rest of the world. You can also use these to communicate with other survivors and network on a possible push-back of the zombies.