Valley Endures Heat for 4th Day in a Row

VAN NUYS —  Here’s how handyman Jim Conroy responded to the tortuous heat Wednesday afternoon: He left his job building a fence and joined his construction-worker buddies for frosty mugs of Guinness at Ireland’s 32 pub.

Conroy was not alone in his quest to escape the broiler known as the San Fernando Valley as the area endured a fourth day of unforgiving heat.

Wednesday was a day to let nature run its burning course, and to try to coexist as comfortably as possible--even as the promise of slightly cooler weather lay just around the corner.

Some locals chugged creamy drinks at trendy juice bars like athletes downing Gatorade. Others bolted for mountain lakes to get an early start on weekend camping trips.

Schools sent their students home early to escape stifling temperatures in classrooms.

A bunch of kids at a public housing project in San Fernando ran screaming happily through ice-cold water gushing from a fire hydrant.

“I’m just trying to find cold anywhere,” said Conroy, 51, a beer in one hand, a bundle of darts in the other. “It’s not supposed to be this way in California. That’s why I left Pittsburgh.”

For the most part, Wednesday’s temperatures showed signs of the cooling trend that meteorologists predict will greet the region by the weekend.

Chatsworth recorded 110 degrees, the same as Tuesday, but the weather in other places was slightly more hospitable. Burbank, which recorded 108 degrees on Tuesday, registered 99 on Wednesday. Woodland Hills and Van Nuys, which each recorded 111 degrees on Tuesday, came in at 106 and 104 degrees, respectively.

Temperatures are expected to continue tapering off in the coming days as a cold front approaches from the Pacific Northwest, leading to mid-90s weather in the Valley’s hottest spots by Friday, said Robert Baruffaldi, meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

But the expectation of cooler weather failed to dampen the enormous demand for energy-sucking air conditioners. The area’s major power suppliers--Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power--reported new records for power consumption Wednesday.

Four days of unrelenting weather had literally baked the insides of buildings, trapping hot air in rooms and forcing cooling systems to work overtime, officials said.

A power outage late Wednesday hit about 1,800 Edison customers in Calabasas, mostly north of the Ventura Freeway along Las Virgenes Road. The power company blamed the general demand for energy in the heat and said power was expected to be returned late Wednesday night.

In the Valley, the overload caused by thousands of power-hungry air conditioners caused outages affecting about 40 customers Wednesday night, primarily in Woodland Hills and Van Nuys, a DWP spokeswoman said.

The surging demand for electricity was expected to continue through the end of the week. “When it’s in the mid-70s at night we know we’re in trouble,” said James D. Dyer, Edison’s grid dispatch manager.

And despite predictions of cooler days ahead, principals at some Valley schools were taking no chances. They planned to send their students home early for the rest of the week.

Elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District are allowed to shorten their days eight times a year because of heat.

Hart Street Elementary School, a year-round campus in Canoga Park, had already used two of its eight days on Monday and Tuesday. Principal Jackie Harris sent the required one-day notification home to parents on Wednesday to let them know that students would also be leaving about 50 minutes early today and Friday.

“Whatever amount of minutes we can reduce the day by are helpful,” Harris said. “It really gets hot in the late afternoon.”

Most of the 51 year-round schools in the Valley have air conditioning, but Hart Elementary is one of eight unlucky campuses. The school has air conditioning in only 13 of 31 classrooms, although Harris said she expected to have cooling systems installed in the remainder by next summer, funded by school district bonds.

“It’s hot, no doubt about it,” Harris said. “We try to put children under trees in the shade at lunch. Parent volunteers brought ice water for children. It doesn’t reduce the heat, but it does make it a little more bearable.”

While the heat left some like Harris miserable, it was cause for celebration to others. Some weekend camping warriors took to the road early, seeing an opportunity to flee the oppressive Valley for the cooler shores of Castaic Lake.

About 1,300 people arrived Wednesday to swim, to power their boats over the glistening water or to picnic in the shady pastures alongside the lake--a larger than usual turnout for a weekday, said Mika Yamamoto, a Los Angeles County assistant park superintendent.

Yamamoto said that some had gotten an early start on camping trips.

“We already have some overnight campers,” said Yamamoto, adding that usually overnight visitors begin arriving on Fridays.

Back in the flats of the Valley, the heat drew throngs of thirsty--and hungry--patrons to ice cream parlors and juice bars, where workers struggled to keep up with an overwhelming demand for cones, shakes and other cold delights.

“It’s been absolutely crazy over the past few days,” said Josh Barkin, an employee at a Baskin-Robbins outlet in Woodland Hills. “We’ve had up to 30 people in the store on line and this is a pretty small store.”

At Water Gourmet & Juice Bar in Canoga Park, Pina Colada and Mango Tango smoothies were being gulped like frozen elixirs. One employee said that after the store closed at night in recent days, people lined up to fill jugs at the water machine outside.

While the patrons outside the Water Gourmet were griping about the hot asphalt and other urban annoyances caused by the weather, another group of people were openly welcoming the heat.

Entomologists say the hot weather is a boon to the area’s dragonfly population, whose larvae mature in greater numbers in such heat. And with the winged creatures comes a benefit: They eat mosquitoes, spiders and other pests.

That was good news to Rosser Garrison, an entomologist with the Los Angeles County agricultural commissioner’s office.

“Any dragonfly,” he said, “is a good dragonfly.”

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Times staff writer Jose Cardenas contributed to this story.