The 2005-2007 drought that parched the Southeast wasn’t the worst Atlanta has endured since its establishment as a railroad hub in the 1830s. But with a burgeoning population dependent on a single water supply source—the Chattahoochee River, fed by Lake Lanier—that itself had been crippled by prolonged dry conditions, the drought was bad enough to spur action.
“Nobody wanted to go through that level of drought again without better preparedness,” recalls Ade Abon, Atlanta’s senior watershed director.