El Niño’s impacts on drought deemed unpredictable

It was 1998, and science teacher Lisa Cochrum’s house was flooded with rainwater. Her roommate thought it was fine to park in the garage. Minutes later, the two found her roommate’s car drenched in more than 8 inches of water. Waves lapped at the bottoms of her car doors, as her roommate rushed to open one of them.

“I said, ‘Don’t do anything! Just leave it,’ and she panicked. She opened the car door and flooded her car,” Cochrum said. “It smelled like mildew until the day she sold it.”

Today, the doors to Cochrum’s house are lined with plastic to prevent damage that might occur from El Niño-related flooding. The Ming Dynasty vase, the Indian tapestries and all her family photos sit upstairs in her two-story condo by a creek.

“People come over to my house being like, ‘Oh great, Cochrum’s in flood season,’” she said. “It’s a term for me. We’ve never been flooded, but the problem with our creeks is that they start low, then they get a little higher and suddenly, within an hour, [it’s] flooding the house!’”

El Niño, which translates to “The Boy” in Spanish, is a chain of ocean-atmosphere climatic disturbances that are due to power-hose California with a series of rainstorms.

This year’s El Niño is “slightly larger in strength than the ‘97-’98 El Niño,” which caused over $500 million in damage and 17 deaths in the state, according to a story in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

While it’s impossible to tell exactly how much damage the upcoming El Niño might cause, principal Paul Robinson said the school has anticipated the upcoming storms well. New Measure E projects have upgraded campus drainage systems, which may help combat the downpour.

“We’re in a much better place now than we were a few years ago if the El Niño would have hit us then,” Robinson said. “We look at the drainage and infrastructure in every new project on campus to ensure we can withstand the rains we are expecting, so I think we’re going to be OK.”

Along with preparations for the upcoming El Niño, the school has also made changes to withstand the California drought — the administration has shut off water to all grassy areas on campus except for those in the quad and in front of the gym, as well as fixing faucet leaks and replacing the school’s plants with more drought-tolerant alternatives.

The grass on the softball and multipurpose fields was recently replaced with turf as well. Robinson said that these changes will cause “huge savings in water usage on campus,” and the school board is “doing what [they] can to remind staff to conserve water.”

Californians are counting on the El Niño to replenish their water supplies, but there’s a chance that the El Niño may fizzle out before that happens — Ryan Sabalow of the Sacramento Bee writes that El Niños are “notoriously unpredictable” and tend to drench the southern third of California when they hit. While a southern-bound El Niño may provide some short-term relief to the southern part of the state, it would do almost nothing to replenish California’s northern watersheds, which serve as the bulk of the state’s long-term water storage.

To combat future water deficits, many Saratoga High students say their families have avoided watering their lawns and tried to take shorter showers. So far, sophomore Aileen Zhang has cut down her shower time to about 6 minutes.

“There’s only a certain amount of drinkable water on planet earth, so every bit of water counts,” Zhang said.

Senior Emma Hoffman, however, believes that conserving water should extend beyond what Californians do at home. Because fewer than 10 percent of California’s water is used domestically, Hoffman said that more needs to be done for Californians to weather the drought.

“I think the scariest thing about the drought is how long it's been going on, and how little people seem to care about it,” Hoffman said. “I guess that’s because we've been in a drought for such a long time, people are just used to it. It’s kind of scary that we just take it for granted.”

Junior Iris Lu argued that the community needs to change its mindset in how it deals with water shortage.

“Most people don't seem to realize how severe our situation is,” Lu said. “Because our area doesn't seem too affected by the drought, and there has been a lot of rain recently, the reality of the situation just isn't enough to spur us into action.”