Residents of Atlanta knew for months that a drought was drying up their beloved Lake Lanier – source of drinking water for nearly 5 million residents. But not many people panicked.

As reported in the Monday New York Times: “Fountains sprayed and football fields were watered. … On an 81-degree day this month, an outdoor theme park began to manufacture what was intended to be a 1.2 million-gallon mountain of snow.”

In San Diego County in Southern California, residents knew a bad drought was upon them. The area usually receives about 12 inches of precipitation. This year, it’s been just 3 inches. But not many people panicked.

Until Lake Lanier grew dry as a bone in places. Until San Diego County went up in flames.

In the Inland Northwest, no one worries too much that what happened in Atlanta and Southern California could happen here. Our plentiful lakes and rivers flow, feeding the aquifers we use for drinking water. Snow frosts our mountains in the winter. Our August fire season gets dampened for good when fall rains arrive. But no one should feel complacent.

“We are very used to having lots of water, lots of salmon, lots of hydroelectric power,” said Mike Barber, director of the State of Washington Water Research Center. “You hate to be alarmist, but changes are occurring. We’re in an era of global climate change. It makes things more possible than before.”

Droughts are impossible to prevent or predict, long term. Fire-breathing winds also can’t be controlled. But what people can control is their preparation for drought and fire. And they can conserve water.

Barber is encouraged that regional elected officials, along with ecology experts and water-use professionals, are meeting in aquifer summits to look at the long-term sustainability of the region’s drinking water supply. The Inland Northwest has been discovered; people are moving in, placing more demands than ever on the region’s water supplies.

Atlanta’s Lake Lanier crisis arose, in part, from unchecked growth in the past decade and the lack of a statewide water management plan. California’s crisis arose, in part, from the mistaken belief that drought and massive housing developments can happily co-exist.

California and federal officials said Wednesday that they learned what not to do in a natural disaster from the grievous mistakes made in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Inland Northwest residents and elected officials can learn from what’s happening now in Georgia and California.

We should be asking: “What would happen if the Spokane River and Lake Spokane dried up? What would happen if massive fires took out those beautiful new subdivisions going up in hillsides throughout the Inland Northwest? Are we prepared?”

If not, let’s make some plans, even if we won’t need them, until …