Heat Wave Prompts Public Health Warning

A severe heat wave that is expected to linger for days, coupled with unusually high humidity, prompted officials Wednesday to warn of a potentially critical public health problem and to direct postal workers in some areas to check on elderly residents as they complete their rounds.

In many areas of Southern California, residents suffered through one of the hottest Augusts in history. Unfortunately, meteorologists predicted little relief from the boiling temperatures during the first week of September.

Heat-fanned fires continued to smolder in Orange County, menacing thunderstorms swept through the region and witnesses spotted an apparent tornado in Pomona. Longtime residents, accustomed to the bone-dry, desert days of early September, were disoriented by the tropical, moisture-laden clouds massed up against the foothills.

Meteorologists said the unusual weather is a result of the collision of a high-pressure system--parked over the Southwest United States for several days--and Hurricane Isis, centered off the coast of Mexico.

Those two weather elements are expected to keep the Southland steamy and stormy through Wednesday.

Temperatures may cool slightly in the next few days--but increased humidity is expected to keep the weather feeling “just as warm,” said Kevin Stenson, a forecaster with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts to The Times.

“Instead of 110 [degrees] in some of the valleys it may only be 100, but if the humidity is this high, it’s still going to feel pretty darn hot,” Stenson said.

Worried by the health dangers of continued heat and more humidity, police, fire and city officials warned that the situation is “critical.”

In Los Angeles, city officials asked the postmaster general to direct postal workers throughout the region to check on residents on routes. The objective of the plan, officials said, is to avert the sort of heat-related crises that have plagued other U.S. cities in recent years.

Alan Heilpern, director of Emergency Services at St. John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica and past president of the Los Angeles County Medical Assn., agreed that the high humidity and prolonged heat made for a dangerous situation.

“I’m actually very surprised that I haven’t seen more heat-related cases in our emergency medical department,” Heilpern said. “But I’m already starting to worry about what might be a pretty ugly Labor Day weekend.”

In Orange County, hospital emergency room personnel said it is often difficult to tell whether a particular patient problem is heat related or just made worse by the weather.

Diane Wicklund, director of emergency and trauma nursing at UCI Medical Center in Orange, said the hospital has had “a lot of people with trauma or illnesses where the heat may have exaggerated their medical conditions. But we haven’t had any heat exhaustion or heat stroke victims.”

UCI Medical Center treated a man Wednesday who fell off a ladder, Wicklund said.

“It was hot and sweaty out. Did that play a role in the accident?” she wondered.

The stifling weather is particularly hard on psychiatric and cardiac patients because the medication they take makes them sensitive to heat and sun. Heat increases the body’s metabolism, “patients absorb their medicines faster and therefore have more incidences of unusual behavior,” Wicklund said.

The heat actually may have reduced the number of visits to the emergency room at Western Medical Center in Anaheim. The hospital’s ER has treated fewer people than usual this week for colds, flu or similar ailments.

“Most of our patients walk from neighborhood, and when it is hot they stay inside,” one staff nurse said. The Anaheim hospital also has not had any patients with heat stroke or heat exhaustion, she said.

Officials at local hospitals said that may change, though, as the heat wave lingers and high temperatures have a cumulative effect on people in frail health.

Day Dawns Hot, Storms Follow

In a pattern more familiar to Midwesterners, Southern Californians found Wednesday dawning hot and muggy, with high temperatures in some areas approaching record levels, including 99 at the Civic Center in Los Angeles, 97 in Long Beach, 111 in Monrovia, 99 in Irvine, 94 in Anaheim and 89 in Laguna Beach.

In the afternoon, thunderclouds swept across the region and delivered torrents of wind and rain.

A plane slid off the runway at Fullerton Municipal Airport during severe winds, airport manager Rod Propst said.

The pilot of the Marchetti two-seater was landing about 3:35 p.m. when the wind shifted, sending the plane into a fence at the edge of the property.

There were no injuries and very little damage to the aircraft, Propst said.

The most severe storm formed over the San Gabriel Mountains west of the Cajon Pass and drifted along the ridge into eastern Los Angeles County, said Wes Etheredge, a WeatherData forecaster. By the time it reached downtown Los Angeles, the storm had lost most of its power and nearly all of its moisture, he said.

Police in Pomona reported seeing a funnel cloud as the fast-moving storm passed over. Together, the winds and heavy rains brought flash floods and damage to a handful of structures.

The roof of a Vons supermarket in Walnut collapsed after heavy rains, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Lt. Mike Walker.

Also in Walnut, a handful of motorists were briefly stranded and forced to scramble onto the roofs of their cars after water suddenly flooded the intersection of Grand Avenue and Amar Road.

There were also reports of roof damage and downed power lines, but remarkably, Walker said, no injuries were reported.

“For about an hour and a half, it was real busy,” he said.

The National Weather Service issued a thunderstorm and tornado watch for the area, advising the public to seek shelter immediately to avoid fast-moving lightning strikes.

The storms also threatened to continue to ignite wildfires throughout Southern California, where firefighters are still struggling to contain flames from the first wave of storms.

In Ventura County, lightning ignited a 15-acre blaze in the hills near Ventura and several brush fires in the foothills of Simi Valley after thunderstorms hit about 3 p.m. Trees, power poles and a roof blaze were also reported in Simi Valley.

The unusual weather follows a month of intense heat in August, when several reporting stations registered record high temperatures.

As of Wednesday afternoon, authorities said they were thankful that the heat had produced only a few health problems. Paramedics with the city of Los Angeles and doctors at UCLA Medical Center said they had seen few heat patients.

But medical experts warned that more than three consecutive days of extreme temperatures are enough to cause heatstroke and a host of other heat-related maladies in the elderly or infirm. With the heat wave already four days old, precautions are in order, experts said.

Times staff writer Scott Martelle in Orange County and Times Community News staff writers Pam Johnson and Holly Wolcott in Ventura contributed to this report.

Updated weather reports with current conditions and five-day forecasts for 800 cities are on The Times’ Web site at https://www.latimes.com/weather.

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Steam Heat

Santa Ana had a trace of rain Wednesday-0.05 inches- but it didn’t cool the city down much. Selected temperatures:

Location: Temperature

Irvine: 99

Anaheim: 94

Santa Ana: 94

Laguna Beach: 89

Newport Beach: 87

San Juan Capistrano: 85

El Toro: 84

Sources: WeatherData Inc., National Weather Service