KILLINGWORTH, Conn. — Gurmeet Singh thought that she had squirreled away enough water. In her preparations before Tropical Storm Irene, Ms. Singh, whose house has water supplied by a private well, filled her largest pots and the hot tub to the brim. That should have been enough to flush the toilets for a couple of days if the well’s pump lost power.

But nearly a week after the storm, she is still without running water. Her neighborhood continues to lack electricity, so the well will not operate. And even when the power returns, she will need to test and possibly treat the water to make sure it has not been contaminated by road oil, chemicals and bacteria carried by floodwaters during the storm.

“I have two little kids, and they are really understanding the importance of water,” Ms. Singh, 36, said as she waited to receive water from a tanker in a commuter parking lot in Killingworth. A steady stream of people arrived for water, some after taking showers at a nearby school.

Across the New York region, thousands of people are still carting plastic jugs, soda bottles and any handy receptacle to water filling stations because they either cannot gain access to water or fear that their water is unsafe to drink. Officials in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are trying to test and confirm that water supplies are potable, but they say it might take several days more.