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When a water main break cut water pressure for much of Cary and Morrisville on Monday, one of the town’s biggest customers was confident it could keep the taps flowing and toilets flushing as normal.
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Raleigh-Durham International Airport has a backup water line from the city of Raleigh that it can use in emergencies. When airport officials learned of the Cary break, they opened the Raleigh water pipe at 3:45 a.m. Monday.
“This is an established protocol followed by our maintenance team to ensure our water supply is not interrupted,” RDU spokeswoman Stephanie Hawco wrote in an email.
Cary’s 30-inch water main broke near N.C. 55, just north of Jenks Road, in the early hours Monday, causing water pressure to drop over a large area that included RDU. Because low pressure can allow bacteria to enter a water system, the town advised customers in the affected area to boil water for one minute before consuming it.
That wasn’t going to work at the airport, where restaurants, coffee shops, drinking fountains and water-refilling stations all rely on clean water. During August, the airport used about 353,000 gallons of water per day, Hawco said.
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That water normally all comes from Cary, which through a longstanding agreement is the airport’s primary water source. Hawco said RDU established Raleigh as a backup supplier at least 20 years ago but rarely has to use it.
RDU can tap the Raleigh line with a key that physically opens a valve in the ground. After flushing the line, the Raleigh water was ready and available, though the airport continued to have good water pressure from Cary, Hawco said.
After testing for bacteria and finding no contamination, Cary lifted its boil-water advisory at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. RDU closed off its Raleigh water line a few hours later and returned to solely using Cary water.
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This story was originally published September 15, 2026 at 4:22 PM.