Newport Beach water customers soon may be allowed to irrigate outdoors three days a week instead of two, but still will be required to conserve.

The City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to take initial steps to move the city to Level 2 of its water conservation plan, which restricts outdoor watering to before 9 a.m. or after 5 p.m. but allows ratepayers to irrigate their lawns three days per week from April through October. Outdoor watering from November through March would be restricted to one day per week.

A speeding wildfire in California that turned hundreds of homes near Lake Isabella to piles of twisted rubble has forced a conversation about how to minimize destruction in the most populous state experiencing the effects of climate change.

Wildfires in the last years have killed several people in California, a drought-prone state experiencing a five-year dry spell.

Weather is one factor, but more critical is the state’s exploding population, spawning communities in the once sparsely inhabited ranch and timberland regions long known to burn, experts say.

Southern California is known for its sun, sand, and of course, it’s snakes. And thanks to our ongoing drought, rattlesnakes are making their way out of the hills and into our yards in record numbers.“They’re out in full force right now,” said Bo Slyapich, who is known as the “rattlesnake wrangler.” He specializes in snake removal, relocation, and prevention. Slyapich has been working with snakes for more than 50 years and says homeowners are giving the rattlers exactly what they are looking for.

Twenty-six million people in California, Nevada and Arizona rely on the Colorado River, but this magnificent source of water that carved a continent is drying up.

Representatives of the three states have been huddling behind closed doors and, for the first time ever, California water officials are offering to give up some of the state’s strongest claims to the river – at least temporarily. The thermometer of the river’s health is Lake Mead — the lake formed behind Hoover Dam. The lake is now lower than it’s been since it was first filled back in the mid-1930s.

Facing threats of earthquakes, wildfires and floods, almost 200 Southern California cities depend too much on big government to protect them, which will lead to slower recovery time when “the big one” hits, according to experts on disaster preparedness.

A report released recently as part of the newly launched SoCal Disaster Risk Reduction Initiative was presented at the University of Southern California. It urged community members to ask tougher questions of their own civic leaders.