Heat solutions

The group of us arrived at the beach in the second week of what was turning out to be an extended heat wave. The house we rented had 4 bedrooms, a huge living room. The kitchen was separated from the living room by a breakfast bar. There was even a canal behind the house that led to a bay. Huge widows walk the length of the house, on the roof, great for sunset watching.

It had to be one of the hottest weeks of the year, in what turned out to be at least 10 weeks of temps 15 degrees hotter than normal for the area. For the last two weeks, nighttime temperatures never went below 75, if that, and by 8 am it was over 90 deg, and it only got hotter thru the day. Often, area thermometers crept toward 100, often hitting, or blowing past that number. It was so hot, even tomatoes wouldn't grow. IF they had fruit, the fruit was the size of golf balls, and hard, instead of baseball size and tasty. The weather people all claimed to have never seen a heatwave this fierce, or long.

Our group was 8, 4 of each sex. Mark, Sam, Tom and Alex, girlfriends were Becky, Jane, Beth and Josey, respectively. We all got into our beach house around 2 pm, unloaded, changed into swimsuits, and hit the beach by 3 pm. We made sure to turn the Air Conditioning on, along with the whole house fan that pulled the hot air out of the house thru the attic. Beach-wise, we had a couple of coolers, same with umbrellas for shade, plenty of chairs, drinks, and suntan lotion. We ended up spending most of the time each day in the ocean because of the heat.

After a couple- three hours of beach and ocean, we made our way back to the house, and started cleaning up, while preparing for dinner. About half of us got showered when we heard a big bang, and the power went out. We went outside to see what and where the noise came from, and we found the bang came from the telephone transformer directly across the street had blown. It only affected 4 houses, ours was the only one occupied. Luckily, it didn't catch on fire like they sometimes do, but was smoking. The Fire Department showed up just in case, you know, where there is smoke there is fire. They were able to cool it down with a water stream, and the smoke soon stopped. They waited a bit to see if there was no fire possibility, then left.

The house water pump was electric, so we had a problem. No showers, more important, no flushing. We had a quick pow-wow on what to do. One of the guys had a huge, 5 ft long fishing cooler, so all drinks went into that, while someone went to get 20 lbs of ice. We pooled some money for food, and two people went to a nearby grocery that had power, and got everything needed to make ribs, hamburgers and salads, plus ready to burn charcoal. They also picked up some water to ensure we had plenty to drink. Luckily, we hadn't emptied the beach coolers, and we saved that water for flushing, partially easing that problem. The rest of us set about prepping for dinner, and opening the windows and doors, hoping to help cool the house.

The rental house came with a few grills, all castoffs from previous renters. We felt lucky not to have to go out for dinner. Several of those who hadn't had a shower jumped in the canal in the rear of the house, entering via a ladder built into the bulkhead. Despite the heat, the canal swim was cooling.

The transformer was repaired around 11 that night. We were surprised that the electricians were doing the work so late, but they explained they couldn't wait, that this wasn't the only transformer to blow, and it needed to be replaced quickly, or the grid would overload, and then more transformers would blow, causing problems down the line. It took several hours for the house to cool down, and we ended up getting to sleep around 2 am..

It hadn't rained for a week or so before the heatwave, and by the time our beach week was up, and we headed home, plants and grass were starting to flag. Tom and Alex had a landscape and grass cutting business, Susie did the paperwork and scheduling. The heatwave was tough on them.

Their customers' lawns first started to turn slightly gray, then turned brown. The grass wasn't dead, just dormant. Most of the grass would grow back with cooler temps and lots of rain. Most, but not all. With no grass to cut, they reached out to their customers and offered watering services to help preserve trees and shrubs. Some shrubs curled their leaves to conserve moisture, and were a bit easier to keep alive with normal watering. Trees were a different story. It takes a lot to kill a tree, but this heatwave could do it. Even though their roots can be 4 ft or more below ground, the extreme heat and lack of rain means less water available. The best cure is subsurface watering, which is holes slightly larger than a garden hose, about 18 inches down, 2-4 times per tree, depending on size. Insert a garden hose, set it to a trickle, let it run for 15-20 minutes then move it. If water starts puddling, move to another hole. This gets hard if you have lots of trees, but sprinklers of every type can be used, although it isn't subsurface, it is better than nothing.

Some customers had irrigation systems, and Tom and Alex turned some zones off, while adjusting other sprinkler heads to just water shrubs, annuals, and trees wherever the irrigation systems reached. Many of the local jurisdictions did not allow watering during the heat of the day, if at all, most would let you irrigate at night.

It eventually rained about 2 months after the heatwave started. Tom and Alex reset all irrigation systems once rain was forecast, telling customers that the rain would roll right off the grass if the soil was baked hard like it is. They reset the zones they altered, re-adjusting sprinklers heads and turned all zones on, and got customers' lawns wet enough that when it did rain, the earth soaked it up, and used the water, instead of the water running off.

The heatwave was finally broken. Temps returned to normal levels, below 70 at night, 85 or so during the day.