Black Isle residents were left without water after a mains burst near Tore in the middle of the night.
As many as 200 customers locals woke up yesterday morning to either no water at all or else very little pressure, making showering and cooking difficult.
The mains ruptured sometime around 3am leading to localised flooding on the A9 that left some debris on the busy nearby roundabout.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue service was called out at 3.19am and were at the scene for about an hour.
One appliance from Inverness was deployed with a pump while crews dug ditches at the side of the road to help divert water from the leaking mains away from the road.
Engineers from Scottish Water’s regional team were also on site and later some assistance with traffic control was provided by BEAR Scotland.
Scottish Water announced on social media there was a problem with the mains and that their teams had started work on it.
Later in the day the company said supplies had been restored but many households will experience lower than normal water pressure.
The repair works meant a traffic control system was put in place just north of the Tore roundabout where the leak occurred reducing the A9 to one lane.
According to the Traffic Scotland website it will remain in place for the rest of today up until Wednesday evening.
A spokesman for Scottish Water said: “We have been contacted during the course of the day by around 200 customers in several localised areas of the Black Isle reporting loss of water or low pressure.
“Some other properties higher up on the network may experience lower pressure than usual until normal network supply is restored.”
“Our local team has rezoned our network in order to restore water supply to customers as quickly as possible.”
To ease the situation the company brought in “road tankers to supplement storage tanks that serve the area, to restore and maintain supplies until the repair is complete.”
The spokesman said: “Engineers are currently working on site to make repairs. To allow this to be done safely, traffic management is in place on the A9 north of Tore, reducing the road to a single lane.
“We would like to apologise for the disruption and thank customers and road users for their patience while we work to restore normal service as soon as possible.”
