DURHAM - The Bull City has weathered more severe droughts, but the worst could lie ahead, so local leaders need to plan accordingly.

That was the message from a provocatively titled forum Tuesday night -- "Will the Water Run Out?" -- that filled the Sarah P. Duke Gardens Visitor Center to overflowing.

Durham residents turned out by the hundreds to get answers about what city officials are doing to get through the drought and what they will do to be better prepared if such water shortages start happening more frequently.

Several panel experts made clear that droughts are nothing new to North Carolina, and there have been worse water shortages.

Jerad Bales of the U.S. Geological Survey Water Science Center in Raleigh showed periods in the 1920s when rainfall was more than 30 inches below normal. The current drought has the area about 15 inches below the typical rainfall.

But Bales said the Flat River, which feeds into Durham's main water reserves, saw its lowest flows in recorded history in 2007.

Robert Jackson, Nicholas Professor of Global Environmental Change at Duke University, chalked that up to global warming. He noted that August, September and October were some of the hottest months on record.

The hotter it is, the faster groundwater evaporates, exacerbating drought conditions, Jackson said.

Though Jackson said he can't predict with "100 percent certainty" that this trend will continue, he said that "It's entirely consistent with what we predicted 10 to 20 years ago."

Durham resident Alice Hall said that "it's so obvious" that global warming is taking place, a case more easily made on a balmy January evening during which the overflow crowd sat comfortably in an outside courtyard watching the forum on TV monitors.

She then chastised the city for not moving to the next phase of water conservation requirements early in the new year.

"We cannot buy rain," Hall said to applause. "You need to ask all of us to sacrifice a little bit more."

Deputy City Manager Ted Voorhees, who found himself fielding most of the questions from the impassioned audience, said late-December storms and the addition of the Teer Quarry reservoir has allowed the city to delay Stage V water restrictions.

Stage V "would have some very negative economic impacts," Voorhees said, among them shutting down all car washes in the city and requiring that all restaurants use disposable plates, cups and utensils.

Increased voluntary conservation efforts could help city leaders delay that tough call further, he said.

The city also plans to be able to draw up to 11 million gallons per day from Jordan Lake by this summer, after the City Council voted Monday night to spend $3 million on a new connection.

That new water would equal about half of Durham's current daily consumption.

Longer range, experts at Duke University have some bold ideas for Durham. They include finding ways to reuse stormwater runoff and treated sewage for non-potable purposes such as irrigation.

Mayor Bill Bell said the city is all ears.

"We don't have all the answers," Bell said. "That's why we're here."