Twenty-four hours without water is survivable. Finding out from a newspaper is not

You are listening to Kibra News Network. Twenty-four hours without water is survivable. Finding out from a newspaper is not. Opinion. This is the view of Kibra News Network, not a news report. Write to us at news@kibranewsnetwork.co.ke if you disagree; we publish good replies. On Tuesday, Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company said the Athi Water Works Development Authority had closed the NCT-Kigoro-Gigiri-Kabete pipeline for urgent repairs. Lindi, Kambi Muru, Silanga, parts of Gatwekera, Kianda, Ayany, Mwembeni and Makongeni were on the list of areas going without piped water for about 24 hours. So were Lavington, Kileleshwa and Kilimani. Pipes break. Emergency repairs are what a water company is for, and the company apologised. This editorial is not about the repair. It is about how Kibera was told. Same notice, different homes A notice that lists Kilimani next to Kianda treats them as the same. They are not. A flat in Kilimani has a tank on the roof. A room in Kianda has a jerrycan, filled at a water point that is now dry. In Kibera, the water point is the tank. The notice reached us, and probably most residents, through news reports, after the taps had already stopped. It told people to use the water they had carefully. By then, many had none. It said supply would return once the repairs were done, with no time. And as usually happens during a cut, the vendors who still had water put their prices up. A shutdown announced from an office becomes a price rise at the door. What a good notice looks like Nairobi Water can text its registered customers. It has the phone numbers of chiefs, village elders and the Nyumba Kumi network, who can pass word around a village in an hour. It can put a poster at every water point before the valve is closed, not after. None of this costs much. All of it would have given families an evening to fill containers. A notice should also carry a time. "Once repairs are done" is not information. "Expected back by 6pm Wednesday, next update at noon" is. If the estimate changes, say so. People plan around a time. They cannot plan around a shrug. And when a cut hits settlements that have no storage, the company should send bowsers to the worst-hit villages. A water company that can shut a pipe to the whole of the west of the city can park a truck in Lindi. Our ask Nairobi Water should publish what the emergency was and how long it took, and adopt a simple rule for the next one: tell Kibera before, not after, and tell it when. Read the reporting this editorial is based on: Lindi, Silanga, Kianda and other Kibera villages are without piped water. That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.