“Most who live in So. California don’t give a shit about saving resources (electricity, water). They figure they are entitled to whatever is available, and they are perfectly happy to let No. California suffer with a lot less. I don’t see the lawns turning brown or the pools emptying in So. California anytime soon.”
The two-year drought of 1976-77 for a lot of Northern Californians was a really bad.
We lived in Sacramento for the early part of the drought. There were no water meters in a lot of Sac, and our culdesac had zero meters. Everyone had swimming pools, large grass yards, lots of flowers and veggie gardens. Water often ran down driveways and into streets.
The company held a meeting in the LA area. The LA bus holding most of us drove by green yards and water running down driveways and into streets. People on our bus were yelling at the water wasters. They were laughing and giving us the finger.
Those of us attending the meetings in LA enjoyed long and enjoyable showers while our families dealt with severe water rationing. My wife said to me “You can’t shower for a week after you get back.”
After a few days, I could go back to Navy Showers as per request by my wife.
I think we were limited to 50 gallons a day for the whole family. We/I installed low flow/flush toilets, flow reducers in every faucet and shower head. The kids were on Navy Showers, get wet, turn off the shower,then soap and shampoo and a short rinse. My wife got a 5 minute shower every other day. I went on the Navy shower plan.
I was able to save a few small trees and rose bushes with used kitchen and later shower water. We stood in buckets and caught the runoff water from our showers.
We bought and had installed low water dishwashers and washing machines. We turned off or disconnected our water softer tanks. It took too long to rinse with softened water.
My wife went to a hair dresser on her day off to get a cut and shampoo. I stopped getting haircuts and shaving.
Of course when the drought was over, we returned to what was our normal.
Then, we had floods off and on for about 2 decades.
That's the way we showered on the old diesel subs back in the early 60's. There was a sea water (salty) shower available with a fresh water rinse too.