Supplies are slowly getting back to normal today after Sunday morning’s massive rupture between a serving reservoir and the town.
A bottled water station and bowsers were established at the Town Hall to cope with the emergency which was first identified at 8am yesterday with consumers reporting either no water or ‘trickle-like’ pressure.
More than 170 calls were logged by South West Water who traced the source of the problem by 4pm to a leaking eight-inch trunk mains under the Devon Expressway.
Engineers worked through the night to place overland pipes over the A38 to keep supplies on tap to affected areas, including Chudleigh, Luton, Ideford and Olchard.
Town and Teignbridge councillor Richard Keeling said water supplies were restored this morning, albeit at low pressure.
He said SWW had done well in the circumstances to deal promptly with the drama and get things back to near-normal.
His main praise was for townspeople who had rallied to the cause to make sure the elderly were not too badly inconvenienced by the temporary ‘drought.’
‘Chudleigh residents are very resilient. Neighbours worked together to check and make sure people who needed bottled water had some,’ he said.
He estimated repairs needed to fix the fault would be substantial.
Cllr Keeling said the town was ‘inundated’ with minor leaks because its infrastructure was ‘ancient.’
A spokeswoman for SWW said this afternoon: ‘Following reports of low pressure and no water from customers in the Chudleigh, Ideford, Luton and Olchard areas on Sunday, we identified a burst on the eight-inch trunk main under the A38.
‘Bottled water and bowsers were made available yesterday while we worked through the night to put in temporary overland pipes to restore water supplies to the area. We also have tankers on standby for times of peak demand.
‘Given the location of the burst, we will use ‘no dig’ technology to repair the pipe at the earliest opportunity later this week. In the meantime our priority is to continue to maintain customers’ supplies.’