It's not that the west coast hasn't had droughts before it's that there is no rain/snow to capture to make a reservoir.
quite literally no snow in the mountains and not enough rain anywhere. The weather patterns have changed. Yes, California has always had
dry weather and yes it has an extremely large and bourgeoning population which doesn't help. And even in the best of times
the state would have issues with water distribution. But now it's a real issue of no precipitation.
It's not Chinatown anymore, Jake.