LOS ANGELES (AP) – The rainwater from a rare spring storm that pooled on Gilbert Jaffe’s front sidewalk could be seen as a nuisance, but in California’s extreme drought conditions, he was treating it like the precious resource it’s become.
Jaffe, a retired Boeing engineer, scooped up buckets of water during brief showers Tuesday night and carried it to barrels in his backyard near downtown Los Angeles.
“I’ve been collecting water for a couple of years,” Jaffe said. “I use the rainwater for my garden.”
He had been watering his tomatoes and peppers for six weeks with rain he collected during a bigger storm in February, and he hoped the new haul could keep up his no-tap-water streak.
The storm brought mostly light rainfall across much of Southern California on Tuesday night after dousing the northern part of the state. It was a welcome respite, but will do little to ease the historic drought, forecasters say.