Cold, Hard Cash : Ice Company’s Business Heats Up With the Weather

VAN NUYS —  Eduardo Gomez figures he’s got one of the coolest jobs this summer.

And on Wednesday, at least, he was right.

While temperatures soared into scorching triple digits in the San Fernando Valley, Gomez and other workers at the Union Ice Co. in Van Nuys packed bags of crushed and cubed ice in a storeroom refrigerated to 18 degrees. It may sound chilly, but between several walks into the sweltering outdoors to sell ice to customers, Gomez enjoyed his frosty workplace.

“It’s hot outside, but if I feel too warm I just come back in here and keep working, and it takes the heat off,” Gomez said, chomping on a sliver of shaved ice.

According to officials at WeatherData Inc. in Wichita, Kan., which supplies weather information to The Times, temperatures in the Valley reached a high of 102 Wednesday, not an all-time record but certainly making for one of the hottest days this summer.

The late-August record for the area was set in 1967, when Burbank hit a blistering 109. Wednesday’s temperatures, however, were still enough to send many school-age children and some parents fleeing to the nearest swimming pool, beach, air-conditioned movie theater or even a shopping mall to escape the potent sunshine.

The heat also caused a 40-minute power loss in Encino, a Department of Water and Power spokeswoman said. Several other power outages were reported throughout the Valley, as the grid struggled to accommodate heavy use of air conditioners.

However, at Union Ice, the largest ice manufacturer in the Valley, searing heat was just the weather they wanted.

“June to mid-September is our busiest time of the year,” said Clyde Stirewalt, manager of the Van Nuys plant.

The company, which operates year-round and mainly sells to large distributors, makes about 90 tons of ice daily at the Van Nuys plant and sells about four truckloads. During the summer, employees work six or seven days a week, filling 7-, 25- and 50-pound bags of cubes and crushed for distributors, businesses and residents.

“It’s a cool job to have during the summer, even though it’s pretty hectic,” Stirewalt said.

Despite Wednesday’s hot weather, customer traffic was slow during the morning. By 11 a.m., only one person had pulled up to the Bessemer Street warehouse to buy a block of ice, nowhere near the numbers that poured in during the dog days of late July, when the Valley sweltered in temperatures as high as 111, Stirewalt said.

“Normally, it takes three to four days of really hot weather before people start saying, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s gonna be hot for a while,’ ” Stirewalt said. “The telltale sign will be tomorrow, because it’s the day before the Labor Day weekend and businesses and families will need to stock up.”

Carlos Fuentes of Arleta doesn’t wait for holidays. Every morning at 11:30, like clockwork, he is at the Union Ice plant heaving five 250-pound blocks into his pickup truck to make the snow cones he sells on the streets of Panorama City.

“I spend about five to six hours on the street, and by then almost all the ice is gone,” Fuentes said.

Within the next half-hour, five other snow cone vendors had wheeled their vans and trucks up to the ice maker’s loading dock to lay in the day’s supply.

The blocks sell for between $14 and $18, Stirewalt said, declining to be specific for competitive reasons.

“Days like this are the days we look forward to,” he said. “The hotter, the better. That’s the way we like it.”

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.