Thousands now relying on public taps for water

The number of houses in Mullingar without water soared over the weekend, with hundreds more of the town's residents finding themselves without running water even in daylight hours, as more pipes froze up in the sinking temperatures.Friday night's -12C temperatures saw households previously been unaffected by the crisis which has left some homes without water since before Christmas, joining the ranks of those relying on standpipes and the generosity of friends and family to keep themselves supplied with water.The crisis has seen the volume of bottled water sales locally soar according to local supermarkets, and both the Army and Civil Defence came out in force to help households, with the Army bringing 1000 litre containers directly in to housing estates, and Civil Defence members actually climbing into the attics and manually refilling water storage tanks in affected homes.By Monday, even parts of Mullingar town centre were affected by the water crisis: turning on their taps to find nothing coming out.Westmeath County Council has reiterated its claim that the public themselves are in part responsible for the water shortage saga. Even though water supplies to thousands of homes are being switched off nightly by the Council in a bid to conserve water supplies, the Council is stating that people are continuing to run their taps to ensure their pipes don't freeze.This according to Roibeard Ó Ceallaigh was the main reason behind the council's decision to turn off water at night time so that the supplies in our reservoirs did not run dry."We would appeal for people to stop doing this immediately," he said."The mains water is running okay, standpipes have been provided and while we accept that people have suffered over the last few days, there is no need to panic."I would say that in 95 per cent of the cases the problem is with frozen pipes at individual properties. There is advice on our website about how to try and unfreeze pipes and what I would say is that people should be careful as the thaw begins. Turning off the stop cocks and the pipes in the kitchen might be necessary to ensure that frozen pipes do not burst as they thaw. If in doubt, always call a plumber to help."But advice about defrosting pipes will be cold comfort to the Mullingar families who have been without water for over two weeks - and three in some cases - and have been relying on standpipes to get water for cooking, cleaning and washing.Brian Gillen who heads up the Civil Defence operations was on duty as usual yesterday morning and was hoping to fill up as many roof tanks as possible so that people could at least have some running water at home.Canal Court, Ardleigh, Ardilaun, Petitswood, Glen Petit, College Hill, Lakepoint, Grange, Ballinderry, College Hill in Mullingar and Raharney, Kinnegad were all on the list for yesterday's (Tuesday) rounds."It's a desperate situation for many people and filling roof tanks gives them a little independence," he said. "A few containers of water filled from a stand pipe doesn't last long and so we will get this service to as many people as we can."I'm an optimist and there is a good thaw happening now. I would say to people to have a little patience as the pipes may take a day or two to defrost."