When the water first turned dirty last week here in Vancouver, I poured a glass and let it sit on my counter. I wanted to see how much dirt would eventually settle.

By the next day, a thin film of silt collected, but not a lot. The water was still cloudy.

The following day, there was a tiny bit more.

Each day, a teeny weeny bit more silt collected.

But what is interesting is that the water, which is still sitting on my counter, remains cloudy. I guess the particles are so fine that they are still suspended.

Presumably, it will take a similarly long time for the water to clear in the GVRD reservoirs, as news reports have been announcing.

The first day it happened, I went across the street to buy some bottled water. The cashier said that it'd been selling like crazy. I went back later in the afternoon to see if I could get some more and by that time it was all sold out.

That night I went to a West End Safeway and saw a line-up stretching from one end of the store to the other, snaking down the aisles (only two cashiers were working as it was a weekday evening). Luckily, I spotted the deli cashier open up so I managed to bypass the line-up.

Nonetheless, the experience gives a taste of things to come should any major disaster strike here, like the earthquake we've been waiting for.

My friend's father in Kobe said that after the Kobe earthquake in 1995, the water was undrinkable for many weeks afterwards, and they had to wait for bottled water to be trucked in by the army every day. He resorted to washing his clothes in the ocean.

My concern is for my mother, who has a lowered immune system due to the medical treatments she has to undergo. She went out to buy some water but when she got to the store, there was a woman stocking all of the remaining water in her shopping cart. Other customers got into a heated argument with the woman for hoarding it all.

I suppose though that with global warming and pollution, we can expect more weather-related problems like this to arise in the near future.

Any thoughts on the water situation? Send in a comment to contact@straight.com with "GS Blog" in the subject line!