Water storage and hygiene during outages.

You don't need a huge tank to get through a typical water outage. Keeping 5–10 litres per person in a clean, covered container is usually enough to cover drinking and basic cooking for a day or two, which is how long most unplanned water outages in urban areas tend to last. If you know your area has longer or more frequent outages, it's worth stepping that up to a proper storage drum rather than relying on bottles alone.

When supply is limited, not all uses matter equally. Prioritise in this order: drinking water first, then cooking, then basic hygiene (hands, dishes), and washing or laundry last. If an outage drags on longer than expected, this order buys you the most time before you have to go looking for an alternative source.

• Fill every clean container you have as soon as you hear of a scheduled interruption — don't wait until the taps actually stop.
• Keep a separate, smaller container reserved only for drinking water so it doesn't get used up on other tasks.
• Use a basin instead of running water for hand-washing and dishes to stretch what you have.

Keep hand sanitiser or a small bottle of disinfectant nearby as a backup for hand hygiene when you're deliberately conserving water. It's not a replacement for washing, but it covers the gaps between water-heavy tasks like cooking and cleaning, so you're not tempted to skip hand hygiene entirely during a longer outage.

Water outages are harder to predict than KPLC's scheduled electricity notices, since most come from community reports rather than official schedules. Check your county's live alerts on OutageKE regularly, especially if you've noticed low pressure recently — that's often the first sign of a bigger interruption coming.