Desperate Times As Drought Diminishes Supplies

"Officials in the central North Carolina town of Siler City estimate that without rain, they are 80 days from draining the Lower Rocky River Reservoir, which supplies water for the town's 8,200 people."

"In the Atlanta metropolitan area, which has more than four million people, worst-case analyses show that the city's main source of water, Lake Lanier, could be drained dry in 90 to 121 days."

"The hard numbers have shocked the Southeast into action, even as many people wonder why things seem to have gotten so bad so quickly."

"For the better part of 18 months, cloudless blue skies and high temperatures have shriveled crops and bronzed lawns from North Carolina to Alabama, quietly creating what David E. Stooksbury, the state climatologist of Georgia, has dubbed 'the Rodney Dangerfield of natural disasters,' a reference to that comedian's repeated lament that he got 'no respect.'"