Heat to peak Friday & Saturday
In the thick of Pittsburgh’s heat wave, Brookline resident Sheryl Reitmeyer and Whitehall resident Laura O’Malley- Duzyk sought relief Thursday in the Beechview Spray Park.
Ms. Reitmeyer, who watches her 4- year- old grandson, Zach, two times a week, decided to let her grandson choose how to cool off.
“It’s too hot to just be at the park without having [ the spray park],” Ms. Reitmeyer said of the 87- degree afternoon.
With temperatures headed into the 90s on Friday and Saturday, Ms. Reitmeyer said she intends to be right back at the park.
Without air conditioning in her home, Ms. O’Malley- Duzyk and her family are escaping the heat by heading out of town for the weekend on a camping trip to Moraine State Park.
People definitely need to have a strategy and take precautions during the heat wave, Pittsburgh safety officials said at a news conference Thursday.
The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for the Pittsburgh area from noon Friday to 8 p. m. Saturday, as hot temperatures and high humidity will bring the heat index to between 100 and 105 degrees.
The city will offer cooling centers for all residents at its senior community centers in Greenfield, Homewood and West End, extending hours until 7 p. m. Friday, and 10 a. m. to 6 p. m. on Saturday and Sunday.
“Everybody is a heat factory; that’s what your body is. You make heat, and you have an ability to get rid of it. When the outside temperature, particularly the humidity, gets higher and higher, there’s less and less ability to get rid of that excess heat,” said Donald Yealy, chairman of UPMC’s
Emergency Medicine Department, during a news conference Thursday at Pittsburgh’s public safety offices.
Heat- related illness can begin with “non- specific” symptoms of sweating or feeling an upset stomach but can quickly escalate, he said.
“It often starts with, ‘ I just don’t feel right.’ It’s easy to ignore, to soldier through it. Bad idea,” he said. “That’s the time to stop, get out of direct sunlight, rest, maybe get into a cool area and stay hydrated.”
Water or sports drinks are recommended, Dr. Yealy said, as opposed to caffeine or alcoholic beverages, which often result in a net loss of hydration.
Ignoring the early warning signs can lead to more serious medical conditions, including fainting and cardiac arrest. The very young or old, or those with underlying medical conditions, are particularly vulnerable and will experience symptoms at a quicker pace, Dr. Yealy said.
City public safety and EMS are also reminding residents not to leave children or pets in cars during the heat.
“Yesterday I saw on TV that there was another death of a child being left in a vehicle in Richmond, Va. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen here,” said Wendell Hissrich, Pittsburgh Public Safety director. “Same with animals being left in vehicles. We will aggressively prosecute.”
Checking on elderly neighbors and family members who do not have access to air conditioning is advised as well, both Mr. Hissrich and Dr. Yealy said.
The risk of severe isolated thunderstorms also comes along with high heat and humidity.
“Turn around, don’t drown. If you see water starting to come up to your wheels, it’s time to turn around,” Mr. Hissrich said.
Pittsburgh firefighters will send extra units to fire calls throughout the weekend to avoid heat exhaustion.
“The gear that we normally wear that protects us from thermal injuries now becomes problematic, as it retains our own body heat,” said Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire Chief Darryl Jones.
Lastly, Chief Jones warned against one temptation Pittsburghers may have in the sweltering sun: opening hydrants to stay cool.
“We do not have a water shortage now, but if everyone starts to crack open their neighborhood hydrant, we will quickly have one.”
The city’s 18 public swimming pools and eight spray parks will be open.
Ms. Reitmeyer said the spray park is a perfect way to cool off for kids like Zach who are “a little too small or too young” for an overcrowded swimming pool on a hot day.
Ms. Reitmeyer said her grandson’s favorite part about the spray park is the fountain that forms a thin layer of water in the shape of a circle — what she likes to call the “water bubble fountain.”
“It’s fun for me to watch as he walks around and tempts the buckets,” Ms. Reitmeyer said. “I love when [ the water dumps] on his head.”
In the next few days, Ms. Reitmeyer said she’s expecting the weather to get extremely hot.
“You’re going to expect to see us back here,” Ms. Reitmeyer said.
Ms. O’Malley- Duzyk, who has a membership at Whitehall’s public swimming pool, said she decided to skip out on the pool for the day to bring her children to the spray park to meet up with their friends, as the fees for guests can be “too expensive for them.”
Spray park employee Abigail Zinski said, on average, the park gets around 200 people per day.
Ms. Zinski said she “absolutely” expects the amount of people to increase as temperatures rise during the weekend. She said she notices that people from the suburbs are coming to cool off at the park. Two staff members are stationed at Beechview’s park with two chairs and an umbrella to help keep them from overheating.