SHORTAGE.. John Prunty, Principal of Tattygar Primary School, only manages to get a few drops out of the school taps.
IT WAS A 24 hour period that left rural communities at worst angry, and at best inconvenienced.
Several hundred school children were forced to take the day off school; while parents with young children, farmers and the elderly were left in limbo as news of repairs to the water supply began to filter through.
The company in charge of operations, NI Water, on two occasions distributed lorry loads of bottled water to a stop-off point in Derrygonnelly on Sunday evening – while local councillors and communities from the likes of Lisbellaw and Tempo were forced to travel in to collect supplies for their area.
In the Lisbellaw area, Tattygar Primary School and Lisbellaw Primary School both closed their doors on Monday.
Ingrid Logan, principal at the latter, and in charge of 215 pupils including the school nursery explained that the decision to close came at with concerns to the safety and hygiene of the pupils.
“It was 10.30pm on Sunday night when my building supervisor told me that the water was going to be off the next day,” she explained, “I came into school around 6.45 the next morning and phoned NI Water – so I sent a text to the parents.
“In the school we would have had no lavatories, no water for snacks, none for clearing up, none for school dinners.”
She added, however that the children were ‘happy to have a day off school’.
In Tempo, both St Mary’s Primary School and Tempo Primary School were forced to close.
Fergal McCann, principal at St Mary’s was in the school at 6.30am to assess the situation.
“We came in and opened the school. We looked for some sort of assurance from water service to see if the water would come on relatively quickly but they said it’d be 2pm so we made a decision.
“Hygiene was a big issue, washing hands after using the toilets, flushing of toilets, urinals, cooking the meals.”
In Derrygonnelly, Angela McShea, supervisor at Spar on the Main Street, said that demand led to the shop running out of water.
It was Sunday morning and people were coming to take five litres and whatever else we had,” she explained.
“We have quite a bit and all the two litres were sold out. People were annoyed about it, and a lot of farmers were annoyed. They need a lot of water for the animals and they were struggling. There were a lot of farmers wives in, a lot of older people who were on their own and couldn’t get out so we had neighbours coming in for them.”
And Roisin Murphy at McGurn Construction was put on water duty for the business, collecting water from the distribution site in Derrygonnelly on Monday morning
“We would be the head office – so it was for the bathroom and toilets and tea and coffee. I’m not sure when it was off on Sunday but we came on Monday – it was clear water but we had very low pressure.
“We had heard about them giving out the water.We just went up and collected, but I know a lot were disappointed – especially those who had no water at all.”
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