Enter the Nomad

Power, telecommunications, shelter — these are all crucial aspects of everyday life that we sorely miss when they’re taken from us.
But, if you don’t have clean drinking water, you may not survive long enough to worry about not being able to turn on the TV or sleep under a roof.
That’s why an innocuous piece of equipment known as The Nomad may just be the most important item the C-130 Hercules delivered this week.
The water purification unit, supplied courtesy of the Australian Red Cross, can be, quite literally, a lifesaver.
“It doesn’t take long in a climate like this before you start to get pretty thirsty,” said ARS’s Bob Handby. “And if you get dehydrated, it can get dangerous.”
While those rainwater tanks that managed to elude cyclone Pat’s high winds and the salt contamination have, to date, managed to supply enough potable water for the island, that supply was always doomed to run out very quickly. Enter The Nomad.
Set up and operational in an hour, Handby said the unit “can now produce enough water for the island for whatever amount of time we need”.
Similar to water purification units being used in Haiti as that country attempts to recover after a devastating earthquake, The Nomad can pump out 5000 litres of pure water an hour.
“If we ran it for two hours a day, that’s enough for 10 litres per person per day,” said Handby.
The unit, currently feeding out of a well near the Red Cross office, features three levels of filtration, plus an ultraviolet lamp used to disinfect.
“I’ve been drinking this water all around the world for the last seven years,” said Handby. “And here I am, still feeling good.”
One of the greatest fears after a cyclone or any natural disasters is contaminated drinking water, a sure-fire recipe for disease and even death.
“People make the mistake that they can detect good water by the look of it, by the taste of it and the smell of it,” said Handby. “But that’s really quite wrong.”
As an example, Handby and his team recently tested a water source that, to the untrained eye, appeared quite normal.
“But it was heavily contaminated with bacteria,” he said. “So we had to put a warning out not to take water from that source.”
At the moment, The Nomad’s filtered water is only available where it sits. Eventually, according to Handby, a 5000-litre bladder will be mounted on a truck, which will do a daily circuit of the island. Each house will receive two 10-litre jerry cans to hold its supply.
“It’s an emergency water supply,” Handby emphasized. “Not a long-term solution. But we believe, in six months, people will be self-sufficient again.”