There are events being held simultaneously in two Orange County cities Saturday, with one in Costa Mesa addressing the lack of water and the other in Irvine focused on too much water.
Welcome to California, Nethuns.
Over at the Irvine Civic Center, 1 Civic Center Plaza, residents can pick up 10 free, pre-filled sandbags, as the city and Orange County Fire Authority host an El Niño public information day from 9 to 11 a.m.
There will also be a 9:30 a.m. presentation on “How to Prepare for El Niño” as well as information booths where city, police, fire and public works officials will offer preparedness and safety tips.
Irvine officials say the event is necessary because the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced there is a 95 percent chance that El Niño conditions will occur this winter.
That threat prompted the County of Orange to announce a press conference dedicated to El Niño preparations Wednesday afternoon at the Orange County Emergency Operations Center, Loma Ridge, in Silverado. Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, Orange County Chief Operating Officer Mark Denny and Board of Supervisors Chairman Todd Spitzer are scheduled to attend.
Meanwhile, the Mesa Water District, which serves Costa Mesa, holds a “Drought Drive-Thru” event in the south parking lot of Estancia High School, 2323 Placentia Ave., from 9 a.m. to noon.
Those who walk, drive or bike up and show a Mesa Water bill or California identification will receive a free, 2-gallon bucket full of water-saving stuff, as you can see in the flier below.
Mesa Water officials have credited its customers with reducing their consumption of water but add more must be done to meet restrictions imposed by the state. The district recently ordered Saturday-only watering of residential lawns (although no watering is allowed this Saturday, Dec. 12, because it will have rained within the past 48 hours).
Climate experts have said despite the expected heavy El Niño rains, California's drought conditions will likely persist.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.
One Reply to “Cities Competing Events Saturday Address Lack/Abundance of Water”