Poking a hole in a grandfather's Leica is a special kind of bad day, you basically became the reason that camera has a story now. My own screwdriver slip from 2017 still visits me at 2am like a bad houseguest.

Read a thing a while back about some library that still runs a floppy drive for old records and they said the failure rate was way lower than people assume (those discs just sit there quietly working). Sounds like Ray had the right idea, test it and sell it, no guessing games. Forty floppies for $22 is a steal no matter how you slice it.

Wait, 8 inches of water after three months? That is rough. I figured even a dry spring would get you more than that in a 55 gallon drum, but I guess the math on roof area to rainfall just does not line up when the sky gives you almost nothing. In my experience the barrel only works if you get one good storm to fill it, otherwise it just sits there and gets funky. Your mileage may vary but I would not count on it as a main water source out there.