Ice Is a Hot--and Scarce--Commodity During Heat Wave

Never mind the water shortage, if this heat wave continues Ventura County just might run out of ice first.

The demand for ice was so high Wednesday that normally full warehouses were bordering on empty, ice manufacturers were hiring extra help to deliver the heat-relieving cubes, and a Simi Valley ice-maker said he might have to import the frozen stuff from Nevada to quench his clients’ cravings.

In blocks, cubes, bags, crushed, shaved or even dry--heat-stricken residents wanted it--and fast.

“I can’t make enough ice right now--we had everything geared to the Fourth of July holiday, but the heat beat the Fourth,” said Doyle Shaw, owner of an ice-making company in Simi Valley, where temperatures hovered around 100 degrees Wednesday. “We’re trying to find ice to bring in from out of state right now, from Nevada.”

Shaw said his employees made about 50 emergency ice deliveries to restaurants, liquor stores and corner markets--about 20 tons in all, more than five times their average number of daily deliveries, Shaw said.

“We’ve been delivering in anything that’s got wheels--if it’ll roll, we’ll use it,” Shaw said in a rushed interview from a pay telephone between deliveries.

One of the company’s customers, the Don Cucos Mexican Restaurant in Simi Valley, said the restaurant is receiving an average of 500 pounds of ice a day to keep up with the demand normally met by their own ice machine, which has a broken compressor, manager Jose Campos said.

“This is a bad time for it to break down, in the middle of a heat wave,” said Campos, adding that hordes of thirsty clients seeking refuge from the heat have been coming in early for cold drinks during happy hour.

“We’re spending a lot of money on ice, and we don’t usually do that,” Campos said.

Temperatures were blisteringly hot around the county’s inland cities Wednesday, with Thousand Oaks topping the list at a record 112 degrees. In Ojai, where firefighters battled a brush fire, tempera tures reached 106 degrees. The Fillmore and Piru area peaked at 101 degrees, officials said.

Even in Ventura, where temperatures were a comparatively cool 84 degrees, the ice business was booming--primarily because of deliveries to inland cities like Ojai and even Santa Barbara that are more at the mercy of a high-pressure ridge that has trapped hot air over much of the Southwest.

At the family-operated Conaway Ice Distributors in Ventura, manager Kenny Burrows said the company hired a fourth delivery employee this week to meet the demand for ice deliveries.

“I got people calling saying they want ice right now,” Burrows said as he loaded the last of seven tons of ice--in the form of slippery 300-pound blocks--onto the refrigerated company truck. “We try

to do the best we can for our customers, but the ones who call today will have to wait till tomorrow. If I had a helicopter, I’d do it.”

Burrows’ father, Conaway owner Dave Burrows, helped out by delivering 600 pounds of ice in the back of his pickup. He said the company also delivered a total of about 3,400 pounds of ice Tuesday and Wednesday to firefighters battling a brush fire in Ojai.

Workers at the Lake Casitas Park Store near Ojai, which gets its ice from Conaway, said a rush to buy ice that started with the heat wave has left their ice warehouse nearly empty, even though the number of tourists is down this year because of low water levels.

“It’s one of the main items we sell at the lake, and we’re running out,” clerk Larry Black said Wednesday. Officials at Conaway said a shipment was scheduled for delivery at the Lake Casitas store late Wednesday.

Forecasters said the high temperatures will be around for a few more days.

“We anticipate very little change,” said Craig Peterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “We’re looking for more record-breaking heat through Friday.”

And even though business is good, some ice workers say they are waiting for a break in the weather so they can take a breather.

“People say, ‘You’ve got a cool job,’ but no, I don’t,” Burrows said Burrows. “It’s a back-busting job. . . . It’s cool when you’re in the freezer, and that’s about it.”

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