When It’s Hot on the Lot

If you thought it was hot where you were Wednesday, Jeremiah Sorto wants you to know it was hotter where he was, in a glass-enclosed booth on a downtown parking lot.

By midday, hours after sunlight beating through the windows created a mini-oven of the tiny metal-and-glass structure, the parking attendant gave up.

He rolled his chair out in front of the booth just off 9th and Flower streets and proceeded to take drivers’ money from a perch on the blacktop, the stifling booth offering a scant bit of shade.

“Check my color,” Sorto said, pointing to his deeply tanned arm. “It’s brown from the sun.”

Attendants are accustomed to sweating out the sweltering summer days that slow down even the heartiest of office workers.

But on Wednesday they were ambushed, caught off guard by a record-breaking heat wave drawn across Southern California by a storm system in the Pacific Northwest.

Temperatures at the Civic Center soared to 97 degrees Wednesday--28 degrees higher than normal--breaking a 1988 record high of 89. The highest temperature in the United States on Wednesday was recorded in Monrovia, which hit 102.

A slight cooling trend is expected to begin today, as sea breezes begin to make their way inland and send temperatures to a high of 86 today and down to the 70s by the weekend.

At the Par-4 Parking lot across from the Original Pantry Cafe and Bake Shop, attendant Javier DelaBarra saw his increasingly warm hut as a refuge.

Although the built-in fan did little to cool the booth, the green awnings shielded its interior just enough to make it better than outside.

So after trekking across the sunny lot over and over, collecting money as the drivers emerged from their parked vehicles, DelaBarra looked forward to getting back inside even a stuffy booth.

“The job pays good, so I like it,” he explained, trying to remain stoic. “Right now, it’s very hot. But my country, Bolivia, is very hot.”

On a day such as Wednesday, it’s easy to understand the parking lot pecking order. There are slight differences in a given lot’s amenities--some booths are better shaded or have better chairs and some require less work from the attendant.

But in all cases, the parking garage is king; the attendant there, golden.

“I’d like to work inside,” said one sweaty outdoor attendant. “When it rains it’s good, when it’s hot, it’s good.”

Attendant Carlos Vasquez, 25, works in a subterranean parking structure, making him the beneficiary of a natural coolness usually reserved for caves.

His long shirt sleeves are the first indication of his good fortune. His completely dry brow, the second.

“It’s better down here,” Vasquez said, smiling. “No sun and not so hot.”

At the Allright Parking lot at 7th and Figueroa streets, attendants have a booth with tinted windows. They have a fan. They even have a water cooler.

But it still feels like it’s 1,001 degrees when they sit inside, said attendant Jonathan Ratzlaff, 27.

And even the booth is better than a valet-parked car that’s been sitting for hours in the sun. Touching the steering wheel in those cars can burn; a 30-second drive can leave the attendant sopping in sweat.

So to office workers who felt a bit warm on their way to lunch, Ratzlaff has these words:

“You don’t know what hot is.”