Heat Backs Off a Little in County

The heat wave that has stifled the Southland for 4 days eased off a bit in Orange County on Friday, with most areas reporting high temperatures hovering near 100 degrees. And forecasters predicted even more cooling this weekend.

According to the National Weather Service, the temperature climbed to a high in Orange County of 100 degrees in San Juan Capistrano on Friday, 9 degrees hotter than the previous record of 91 degrees for an April 7 set in Orange in 1939.

Unofficially, however, the mercury hit 105 degrees in Mission Viejo at about 1:30 p.m., according to Orange County firefighters at the Mission Viejo fire station, and 101 degrees in Tustin.

7 Degrees Cooler

Unofficial or not, it was still 7 degrees cooler than the previous day’s record of 112 degrees set at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which won the distinction of being the nation’s hot spot Thursday.

Elsewhere in Orange County, Friday’s high temperature was 99 degrees in Santa Ana, 98 in El Toro, 97 in Fullerton and 85 in Newport Beach, according to the National Weather Service.

Nights remained warm, too. The overnight lows were 55 degrees in San Juan Capistrano, 66 degrees in Santa Ana and 77 degrees in El Toro, according to the National Weather Service.

While the fourth consecutive day of sweltering heat was tough on almost everyone in the Southland, probably no one had a harder time than the patients and employees at two Los Angeles area hospitals Friday.

The thermometer peaked at 104 inside the cardiac care unit at the UCLA Medical Center on Friday afternoon after a cooling-tower fire Thursday night knocked out the air-conditioning for the entire hospital. And, at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in Lincoln Heights, it was about 100 degrees Friday afternoon in some of the wards where there is no air conditioning.

Sarah Daniels, a secretary in the UCLA cardiac unit, said she resorted to fantasizing about a place she has never been just to get through the day.

“If I just keep thinking, ‘I’m in Tahiti. I’m in Tahiti,’ then this heat doesn’t bother me,” she said, gazing wistfully at two lemonade cartons she had already emptied.

Hot on Weekend

Pat Cooper, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, said the sizzling heat should last through the weekend.

“Saturday will be another hot one for much of the area,” she said. But in Orange County, much cooler days--with highs in 80s in inland areas and in the 70s along the beach--were forecast for today and Sunday, with some late night and morning fog to bring a cooling influence, the National Weather Service said.

Forecasters said the strong high-pressure systems that have been dominating the weather patterns over the western United States will begin breaking down late Sunday, bringing to an end the hot, dry, Santa Ana winds that have been parching the Southland.

“The real cooling trend won’t start until Monday, when we should be back to the 70s and 80s across most of the area,” Cooper said.

Still Days Away

But that prospect was still 3 days away for Daniels, one of 4,500 employees who sweltered through the day Friday along with more than 450 patients at UCLA Medical Center. Although the air-conditioning was working by noon, it took until nightfall to cool down the seven-story building.

Paramedic ambulance traffic was diverted to other hospitals until 3 p.m. Friday, and elective surgeries were postponed until today.

To help those who had to stay inside the hospital, the UCLA center’s staff used some creative methods.

Fans were placed in every room, and windows, which are normally closed, were opened.

‘We want to catch any breeze we can,” said Suzette Cardin, nurse manager in the cardiac unit.

Non-essential lights, computers and other electrical devices were turned off and the traditional medical uniforms, which tend to be on the warm side, were discarded in favor of cooler garb.

“Everyone is especially casual today,” Cardin said.

Patients were given cool baths and pitchers of ice water were placed at every bedside and work station. Brows were sponged with dampened towels.

“Most of the patients are just very lethargic . . . but we are not really concerned that their conditions will get worse,” Cardin said. “We’re just going to keep an extra close eye on them.”

For a time, hospital workers were worried about the cardiac unit’s computers, which are used to monitor patients’ heartbeats. Clinical engineer Ray Ford said the computers do not work above 94 degrees and the room temperature was 10 degrees above that.

To cool things down, he used fans blowing over buckets of ice. The makeshift cooling system worked. The computers kept on monitoring.

Volunteers such as Berthe Lyons roamed the UCLA center’s sauna-like hallways offering a cool drink to anyone in need. A cafeteria worker said ice cream was the best-selling item of the day. Hospital personnel were offered free lunches and all the juice and lemonade they could consume.

“It’s the least they could do,” said one nurse, who asked not to be identified. “It’s miserable. I can hardly breathe.”

Patients scheduled to be discharged left unusually early, said nursing manager Veronique Rouillard. “They were in a rush to get out of here,” she said.

Across town at County-USC Medical Center, fans were moved from offices to patient wards, especially those on the south side of the hospital, where the sun bakes the outer walls during the day. Like their counterparts at UCLA, the 1,440 patients at County-USC were given cooling baths and swabbed with damp towels, and nurses made sure everyone had plenty of cool water to drink.

Meanwhile, at a high school in Claremont, some students staged a walkout to protest the heat and lack of air conditioning in their classrooms.

“It was steaming in there,” said Josh Crowe, a ninth-grade student at Claremont High. “When the bell rang at 12:40, we decided not to go back to class.”

Principal Nancy Krause said some of them “came in and asked me to declare a minimum day”--a shortened schedule that would have closed the school for the rest of the day.

“I told them I didn’t have the authority,” she said.

After meeting with the protesters--about 150 of the school’s 1,800 students--to discuss the problem, Krause said about half of the youngsters went home and the others returned to class.

Officials at about 20 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District with limited or no air conditioning released students early Friday, according to district officials.

“It was simply too warm,” said Janet Petersen, office manager at San Jose Elementary School in Mission Hills, which sent children home an hour early. “I didn’t hear many students complaining, but the staff certainly felt it.”

District officials notified schools on Wednesday that they could release students early if the temperatures topped 95 degrees and parents were notified 24 hours in advance.

Quake Not Related

And if anyone was wondering, Friday’s moderate earthquake in Orange County was in no way related to the hot spell, according to scientists at the seismology laboratory at Caltech in Pasadena.

“Whenever there’s an unusual weather condition and an earthquake occurs, people associate it with the weather condition,” said Riley Geary, an analyst at the lab. “The weather had absolutely nothing to do with it.”