What News from Cape Town?

I saw Booboo post and remembered Day 0. What happened with that? Did it rain? Are there evacuations taking place? It was in the news in January but I haven't heard a peep since then!

Zloth said:

I saw Booboo post and remembered Day 0. What happened with that? Did it rain? Are there evacuations taking place? It was in the news in January but I haven't heard a peep since then!

Click to expand...

*must….get …water….*

You remembered - thank you a little like the Y2K bug that was going to end everything, it turned out to be less of an issue than people had feared. We still have water scarcity, which is getting worse as the region dries out and population increases, but gov finally came the party and have made more resources available. Several desalination plants have been/are being built and they are drilling into the local aquifer (which is apparently *not* something you want to do…I was reading about issues in California related to this). But we are still officially on water rationing: 50 litres per person per day (for everything: washing, drinking, dishes, laundry, loo etc). I re-use my shower water to fill the toilet cistern, for example. It really is a lifestyle change - we just have to accept that this part of the country is heading towards much reduce rainfall and change our lifestyles and construction habits etc to accommodate this. I think the lesson finally sank home. I must say I miss a nice long shower or bath in winter *sniff* I saw a program on tv about the growing issue of water scarcity globally, with many regions drying out - so I suspect we'll hear more about this in the future.

Can't imagine living in a city with those type of water restrictions. California was also entering a drought and the ground dried out, but the rain finally moved in.

It's not just California either as I have lived in Illinois and Connecticut and the weather has changed. Colder and Hotter temps with less rain in certain regions.

@couch - yeah those pics are scary...we have similar ones here. I think global warming is shaking things up in many places: parts of South Africa have become wetter and the weather more extreme. We are all so excited whenever a cold front brushes past us ;-) Everyone used to bitch and moan about the rain ... the bigger worry is agriculture which uses a lot of water, and relies mostly on run-off and dams. Like I said, you can tap the aquifer but that is not a great thing to do long term...

SW Kansas has been pulling water out of the aquifer for decades, mostly for agriculture (which also turns around and feeds livestock). It's not out but it's definitely not replenishing quick enough. They're talking about pumping water all the way across Kansas (about 600km) to help them out.

Good to hear that Cape Town didn't have a complete disaster, though! Hopefully the de-sal plants can take over once they get built.