Our Story

Water was my job for 40 years. This is where it ended up.

Twenty-two years as an Army Water Treatment Specialist. Fifteen more running a city’s water. Then four days in February 2021 that changed what I did with all of it.

Ray and Diane Bennett, founders of Blackout Water, at home in Waco, Texas
Ray Bennett · Founder, Blackout Water · Waco, Texas
1983–2005 · Twenty-two years in uniform

My name is Ray Bennett. For twenty-two years I was a Water Treatment Specialist in the United States Army. My job was simple to say and impossible to fake: somewhere between 400 and 800 soldiers drank water every day, and whether that water was safe depended on whether my equipment and I did ours.

Ray Bennett at water purification training, Fort Leonard Wood, 1983
Fort Leonard Wood, 1983. Eighteen years old, first week on the purification trailer.
Ray Bennett handing clean water to a resident during Hurricane Andrew relief, 1992
Hurricane Andrew relief, Florida, 1992. The first time the job meant handing water to a neighbor.
2005–2020 · The city side

After I retired in 2005, I kept doing the same job in civvies: fifteen years as a water operator for the city utility here in Waco, Texas. Mains, treatment plants, boil notices. I’ve seen drinking water from both sides: the side where men depend on you in the desert, and the side where a whole town assumes the tap will just keep working.

Ray Bennett flushing a hydrant at night during a boil notice, Waco, 2015
Night hydrant flush during a boil notice. Waco, 2015.
February 2021 · Winter Storm Uri

Then came February 2021.

If you lived through Winter Storm Uri, you don’t need me to describe it. The power failed, the pumps failed behind it, and for four days most of Waco had no water pressure and a boil notice on top of it. My wife Diane and I were fine. I had the training, the gear, and a garage full of habits from two careers.

Ray holding a glass of discolored tap water up to the light during Winter Storm Uri
February 2021. What came out of the tap when the pressure came back.

Our neighbor Eleanor is 74. She had a saucepan and a snowbank.

I spent those four days hauling safe water next door. And somewhere around day three, watching a woman apologize to me for needing help, it hit me that I’d had it backwards my whole life. I’d spent forty years making sure other people had clean water. It never once occurred to me that the system at home was running on the same thin margin I’d been guarding overseas. And when it slips, it’s not preppers or soldiers who pay for it. It’s grandmothers. New parents. People three houses down.

Eleanor melting snow in a saucepan on her stove during the freeze
Eleanor’s kitchen. A saucepan and a snowbank.
Ray walking home at dusk through the snow, day three of the outage
Walking home, day three.
“I spent my whole life making sure other people had safe water. I just never thought I’d be doing it in my own street.”Ray Bennett

So I built the thing I wished Eleanor had in her kitchen drawer.

Blackout Water is a survival straw with two stages, because bad water is more than one problem. The first stage is a 0.01 micron membrane, twenty times finer than the standard survival straw. It handles bacteria and protozoa. The second is activated carbon, which is what deals with the stuff most straws ignore completely: chemicals, chlorine, sediment, and the taste that tells you the water came from somewhere ugly.

Ray holding the first working prototype up to the light in the shed, Diane watching from the doorway
The first prototype that worked. 2022.
Diane testing the straw on a jar of murky rain-barrel water
Diane’s rule: nothing ships until she’d drink it. She drank it.
  • Two-stage filtration: 0.01 micron hollow-fiber membrane plus an activated carbon stage. Most straws have one stage. I refused to ship one.
  • Handles more than bacteria: the carbon stage deals with chemicals, chlorine, sediment, and taste.
  • Three ways to drink: straight from the source, screwed onto any standard bottle, or hung as a gravity filter. Nobody should need strong lungs in an emergency.
  • 1,800-gallon lifespan: no cartridges, no subscriptions, no expiry date. It stores 10+ years.
“You buy it once, you put it in the drawer, and it waits for you. Everything else about preparedness is harder than that.”Ray
See the Survival Straw →

30-day guarantee · Filters up to 1,800 gallons · Never expires

I’m 61 years old. I’ve been responsible for other people’s drinking water since before I could legally buy a beer. This straw is the sum of all of it, shrunk to fit next to the flashlights.

Ray and Diane raising coffee mugs over a laptop showing their first order, 2023
First order, 2023.
Ray and Diane packing Blackout Water orders together in their garage
The garage today. Orders still go out the same way they did on day one.

Stay ready,

Ray Bennett
Founder, Blackout Water · Waco, Texas
P.S. Diane runs everything on the customer side. If you ever write in, you’ll probably hear from her first. She’s meaner about water quality than I am. Nothing ships until she’ll drink it.
Get Your Survival Straw →