The Important Roles of Water Trucks in Emergencies

Water Trucks And Daily Life

Water trucks, or water tankers, provide potable and nonpotable water for a variety of uses, including dust control, drinking water delivery, firefighting, and farming. While you may not notice them in daily life, you'd certainly realize they weren't around when the services you rely on, which also rely on water trucks, began to struggle. In today's blog post, we're breaking down just how important water trucks are to modern society by highlighting their vital role in emergency situations.

At Superior Equipment, Inc. we provide high-quality used and refurbished water trucks for all applications. If you're in the market to add more water trucks to your fleet or have an interest in starting your own business using a water truck, contact us for more information and check out our online inventory! We're always here to provide you with the highest level of customer service.

Early Civilizations Built Their Societies Around Water

When it comes to understanding the importance of water trucks in emergencies, it can help to take a little trip back in time. When early civilizations began springing up, they often did so around rivers. Water was as vital to everyday life back then as it is today, and a lack of convenient transportation methods meant that a society's proximity to a river made a huge difference in its members' quality of life. The further a group of people lived from water, the further they were from its life-giving benefits: fish, irrigation, hydration, soil fertility, crop growth, basic hygiene, and more.

As society began to spread out, people needed to figure out how to keep water close by. Today, most of us have so much access to water that we take it for granted. A simple twist of a knob directly delivers clean water at the temperature we desire to our home. When a disaster strikes, we can face the unsettling realization of just how hard life becomes without easy access to water. Thanks to water trucks, we can continue to meet our needs for water even in the most dire circumstances.

What Emergencies Require Water Trucks?

Natural And Non-Natural Disasters

If a community no longer has access to safe drinking water due to a crisis, this adds a secondary crisis to the situation. Not only can this lack of potable water lead to dehydration and a whole host of other health concerns, but it also affects a community's ability to cook. Even the most basic food staples, such as rice and beans, require water to be cooked. If a town or city had to go without safe water for long, they could no longer have access to some of the most affordable nutritious food. Water from water trucks can also be used to help disaster-affected families to perform basic hygiene tasks, such as bathing and doing laundry.

Small and Large Fires

Water trucks are crucial players in firefighting, especially in areas that do not have access to large amounts of water nearby or via fire hydrants. By having a fleet of water trucks ready to go, firefighters can gain access to thousands of gallons of water to help them put out blazes as quickly as possible.

Water trucks are not only useful for wildfires or house fires, but for "fake" fires, too - movie fires, that is! Have you ever wondered how the entertainment industry ensures that staged fires can be effectively extinguished if they get out of control? Probably not, but the answer is often water trucks. Water trucks are also effective at preventing fires in the first place when they are used to wet dry, heat-exposed ground.

Droughts

Droughts are not uncommon, meaning that many people may not realize how deadly they can become without proper mitigation. During a drought, farmers no longer have access to naturally occurring water. Left to deal with this on their own, they would have no means of watering their crops or hydrating their livestock. This would not only lead to the direct loss of food sources and animal life, but also an indirect loss for humans - we would no longer have access to an ample food supply. Thanks to water trucks, farmers in drought-stricken areas can bring in water from other parts of the country that are not experiencing a drought.

Health Care During Disasters

Health care settings require a lot of water to maintain sanitation standards. Water is also used in a variety of procedures, including dialysis, which is a medical process that replicates kidney function in patients managing end-stage renal failure. Water trucks must meet a variety of high standards to be used for this purpose, but they are a common choice for transporting water for this vital process. The CDC even has specific guidelines laid out for the use of water truck tanker water in dialysis treatments.

Buy Used and Refurbished Water Tanker Trucks From Superior Equipment, Inc.

Now that you know how useful water trucks can be in both daily infrastructure operations and emergencies, you may want to consider purchasing one for your own use. Starting a business providing water truck services is also a viable option that allows you to provide a vital resource for countless other industries. At Superior Equipment, Inc., we can deliver water trucks to all 48 contiguous states. Shop our inventory online now or contact us to learn more!