If water levels keep falling, Cape Town will declare Day Zero in less than three months. Taps in homes and businesses will be turned off until the rains come. The city’s four million residents will have to line up for water rations at 200 collection points. The city is bracing for the impact on public health and social order….
For now, political leaders here talk of coming together to “defeat Day Zero.” As water levels in the dams supplying the city continue to drop, the city is scrambling to finish desalination plants and increase groundwater production. Starting in February, residents will face harsher fines if they exceed their new daily limit, which will go down to 50 liters (13.2 gallons) a day per person from 87 liters now.
These are seriously small amounts of water-per-person. A common planning factor for families is 200 GPCD. Troops in barracks can be held to 40 GPCD in emergency conditions. Old toilets use 7 gallons per flush. A 10-minute shower with a low-flow shower head uses 20 gallons.
"The idea behind Year Zero is that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch. All history of a nation or people before Year Zero is deemed largely irrelevant, as it will ideally be purged and replaced from the ground up."
We're living it.
I removed 600 sqft of lawn last summer, another 1200 sqft on the block for this year. Eventually I'll only have about 600 sqft left, the rest will be rock or brick or similar.
These are seriously small amounts of water-per-person. A common planning factor for families is 200 GPCD. Troops in barracks can be held to 40 GPCD in emergency conditions. Old toilets use 7 gallons per flush. A 10-minute shower with a low-flow shower head uses 20 gallons.
Lookit all those nice green mountains to the north and east. <img src="http://i66.tinypic.com/oh8myf.jpg"/>
We got a nice 6 month reprieve from drought conditions here, though we never lifted water restrictions.
And here I thought Cali's drought was bad FFS.
It is bad. Just not Cape Town bad.
If you could just re-route the clouds southward, we'd be very grateful.
Indeed. Such a nuisance.<img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ksiwytSCI68/VkkSMJ2I8JI/AAAAAAAADc0/vNBjTh3oNoY/s1600/2015-01-10%2B15.03.49.jpg"/>
"The idea behind Year Zero is that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch. All history of a nation or people before Year Zero is deemed largely irrelevant, as it will ideally be purged and replaced from the ground up."
We're living it.
I removed 600 sqft of lawn last summer, another 1200 sqft on the block for this year. Eventually I'll only have about 600 sqft left, the rest will be rock or brick or similar.