Aqua NC finds temporary water solution for Raleigh residents

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Well, they're not tapped out anymore - about 700 households in north Raleigh on Thursday saw their faucets running at full pressure again, thanks to Aqua North Carolina gaining approval to temporarily connect to the City of Raleigh's water utility.

"It's a relief, yes," resident Nancy Fraser quipped to ABC11.

She and her husband, Bob, live in the Wildwood Green subdivision outside of the Raleigh city limits.

They had been experiencing little to no water since Sunday.

"In the morning, it was pretty regular," she said. "It was underpowered, but in the afternoon, when the kids get out of school and then dinner and laundry and everyone getting ready - (it was) gone."

Hundreds of residents in the Stonehenge and Crescent Ridge neighborhoods have been without water for three days after officials said four wells were essentially tapped out.

RELATED: No water has north Raleigh residents wanting answers

They're now all hooked up to the City of Raleigh utility, but only for the near future.

A fourth community, Crescent Ridge, also experiencing low or no water pressure earlier has begun to see an increase in water pressure, according to Aqua NC's president Shannon Becker.

Aqua, however, is still requesting that customers there continue to avoid non-essential water use and is pursuing a mandatory restriction on non-essential water use from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality for both systems until further notice.

"We're in proactive mode," Becker explained to ABC11. "We are taking this time now to get engineering crews in to look at the wells and the pumps and to see if there's anything we can do to increase capacity."

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As to why residents like the Frasers can't be on Raleigh's system permanently - communities outside the city don't pay city taxes and thus don't use city utilities.

If homeowners wanted to become part of the City of Raleigh, they must petition the city to be annexed.

To learn more about that process, visit the city's website.

Becker meanwhile is encouraging all Aqua customers to sign up for the company's alert system.