The Suffolk County Water Authority is "imploring" customers to stop watering their lawns until further notice.
Water usage is so high that it’s creating a public safety concern due to the risk of low water pressure at fire hydrants, which could hamper firefighting efforts.
"We need everyone to do their part," said Dan Dubois, Director of Communications at the Suffolk County Water Authority.
"This is a collective effort. Our system is running at maximum capacity. We have every asset that we can have running, running to meet that demand. So we need everyone to do their part and cut back.”
He said overnight lawn irrigation uses up reserves and lowers water pressure throughout the network, which relies on pressure, not electricity, to distribute water.
"During those early morning hours, if there is a large fire to break out, we're certainly concerned that there would not be enough pressure or water in reserve in those tanks to meet that demand necessary to put out the fire."
The water authority first issued a water alert last month. It expects the alert to continue until either a break in the hot, dry weather or customers heed the restrictions.
