Mayor Eric Adams asks residents to take shorter showers as city agencies ordered to prepare conservation plans

New York’s mayor urged residents to take shorter showers, fix dripping faucets and otherwise conserve water, issuing a drought watch Saturday after a parched October in the city and in much of the United States.

A drought watch is the first of three potential levels of water-saving directives, and Adams pitched it in a social media video as a step to try to ward off the possibility of a worse shortage in the United States’ most populous city.