If you have no water in an emergency

An emergency could:

• make your water supply unsafe to use
• cut off your water supply.

You should make sure you have a supply of water that will last you at least 3 days.

What would you drink if you did not have clean water for 3 days?

If you did not have clean water for 3 days how would you:

• wash yourself?
• was your clothes?
• cook things?
• wash things you have used to cook with?

You can use clean empty plastic drinks bottles to store water.

1 person will need 3 litres of water for every day you do not have clean water.

Do not use empty milk or juice bottles to store water as they are difficult to clean.

If you store water in bottles that are not cleaned properly you could get sick.

Make sure you store enough water for:

• babies
• pets / other animals.

You can store drinking water for up to 1 year if you add a small amount of unscented household bleach.

You should add half a teaspoon of bleach to every 10 litres of water.

Do not drink this water for at least 30 minutes after mixing in the bleach.

Put a label on each bottle that says the date it was filled.

Water bottles should be stored in a place that is kept:

• cool
• dark.

You should make sure you also store plenty of water you can use for:

• cooking
• cleaning.

If you have a hot water cylinder you can use that water.

You should also store extra water in large plastic containers.

You can also fill empty plastic ice cream tubs with water.

You can keep the tubs of water in the freezer.

The tubs of frozen water can be used:

• to keep food cool if the power / electricity is cut off
• for drinking.