The "D" Word

Let me take you back to the 70's...

1977 to be specific.
I had just graduated from Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, CA.

It was a hot dry summer but more importantly I remember they called it a drought.
Technically a drought is more than one year. A single year is called a "dry spell".

This was a drought because it was the second in a row of unusually low rainfall in the winter, low snow pack runoff, and low reservoirs.

Although I was a pimply faced teenager back then, I distinctly remember people pulling up their vast lawns and planting native plants and shrubs.

Maybe because at that time I saw plants and shrubs as having absolutely no use to a teenager.

Golf courses watered only the putting greens, letting the rest of the grounds go dead.

I heard of something called Ice Blocking that some kids used to do at the local golf course as well that like the grass dried up but that shall go unmentioned.

Many houses didn't even replant. They just let their lawns go dry.

That brings me to Drought 2007!

Sensationalism aside, I just heard the Santa Cruz area residents will have to abide to new regulations on mandatory water conservation.
There will be NO watering during the daylight hours!

I know that's not a big thing, but it's a start and it made the headlines.
Now that I am older, visioning back to those days in the late 70's of vast lawns of drab brownness, or whole yards and neighborhoods replanted with shrubs, how would a big drought today effect us today?

There are some very significant changes since the drought in 1977.
Almost everyone has drought resistant plants.
We have much fewer square feet of lawns.
Watering is usually done via an automatic sprinkler system that can turn on at any point in the day.
Over watering has been replaced by drip irrigation.
But I can't help but think how a severe drought would effect the housing market here in the bay area.

What do you think?