Overheated Valley Dwellers Make Their Escape

Enough with the rat race that rules Los Angeles life. Enough with worrying about work and money and sticky heat that won’t let up.

Mardik Oruncakcil needed to escape.

Along with a group of 14 friends, the Northridge real estate manager rented a 29-foot motor home from Metro RV in Burbank on Thursday morning and headed high into the Sierra Nevada for an early start to Labor Day weekend. Oruncakcil hopes that after sleeping by the side of the Kern River for five nights, his troubles will evaporate.

“Up there, you don’t have to deal with anyone. You don’t have to worry about what you wear or what you look like. You just park on the campground, open the door and you’re there,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”

With tropical temperatures and humidity expected to linger through Labor Day, others similarly plotted last-minute road trips and holiday getaways. Several businesses specializing in motor homes reported that Winnebagos were renting like they were going out of style.

The recent heat wave, a holiday weekend and low gas prices also mean auto travel is expected to hit record levels, according to Carol Thorp, spokeswoman for the Automobile Club of Southern California.

“The combination of lower gas prices and a holiday weekend just makes people feel free,” Thorp said.

So, hit the road.

The National Weather Service is forecasting hot and humid weather in the San Fernando Valley this weekend, with scattered showers in the afternoons. Highs will be in the 90s and lows in the 60s. Showers will decrease in frequency and volume by Sunday afternoon.

City Councilman Joel Wachs, acting as mayor while Mayor Richard Riordan and City Council President John Ferraro are out of town, has called on businesses and citizens to donate new fans so the city’s Department of Aging can distribute them to elderly residents.

“Obviously . . . everyone in the city has been sweltering,” said Wachs, who was surrounded by whirring electric fans at a news conference early Thursday at City Hall. “But the impact on the sick and elderly is the greatest. Many elderly don’t have air conditioners . . . and as we begin to look at it, we find many don’t have fans.”

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Department of Aging General Manager Ann Smith said workers had come across “a number” of seniors who needed fans and had distributed 48 by early Thursday.

But the fans won’t be much help either if outages, like those that plagued the Valley on Thursday, persist. Storms caused spot power outages throughout the Valley and the rest of Los Angeles, affecting 31,000 customers Thursday morning, Department of Water and Power officials reported.

DWP spokeswoman MaryAnne Pierson said it was difficult to pinpoint the actual numbers but that outages occurred in neighborhoods in almost every community in the Valley.

She attributed some of the outages to the round-the-clock demand made on power transformers in recent days of 100-plus temperatures.

The National Weather Service reported high temperatures of 102 degrees in Burbank on Thursday, 101 in Northridge and Van Nuys. Woodland Hills’ high was 98 degrees.

“With our current weather, the transformers are not getting any downtime, so a lot of them are blowing out,” Pierson said.

Lightning and winds have also contributed to the problem, she said, with several poles being “blown apart.”

Two dozen repair crews were working in the Valley on Thursday, said Pierson, with some making temporary repairs to “fix the problem immediately” until another crew can come and make permanent repairs.

Rain clouds rolled over the Valley in the afternoon, dropping a third of an inch within minutes in some places and casting a pall over the area for much of the day.

Overnight rain and threat of tropical storm Isis did little to deter the weekend camping crowd, though. By 10 a.m. Thursday, Kurt Hauser, owner of Road Bear International RV in Agoura Hills, reported that only one of his 80 vehicles was still available.

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At Crest RV Rentals in Sylmar, all 45 RVs were gone, said rental agent Stacey Bliss. Perhaps in response to the heat wave, Bliss said, this year’s Labor Day rental season differed from the usual pattern of booking a month in advance. Several reservations were made within the past two weeks.

“In the past few days, we’ve had people come in to rent, saying, ‘I’ve got to get to the beach,’ ” Bliss said. “But surprisingly enough, a lot of people are going to the desert. We look at them like ‘You must be insane.’ ”

Metro RV in Burbank rented its entire fleet of 100 RVs.

“We look like a used car lot,” laughed Cheryl Almuina, director of rentals. “Everyone is leaving their cars here.”

Almuina guessed people were extending the summer season into September and October.

“Usually our business drops 20% right after Labor Day,” she said. “But we’re going to be busy through September and October, right into early November.”

Art Hartounian, 28, of Tarzana, who was going away with Oruncakcil, said he couldn’t wait to get close to nature.

“We’re going to be right near the river, so if it gets hot we can just jump in,” he said.

For people who can’t reach a river, the city has extended hours of operation for city pools. Most will be open Monday through Friday 3:30 to 7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 1 to 6 p.m.

General admission is $1.25; children, 75 cents. Admission for seniors and the disabled is 50 cents. Call (818) 765-0284 to locate the nearest public pool.

People interested in contributing new fans can call the Department of Aging at (800) 834-4777 or send cash donations to the Department of Aging, 2404 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 400, Los Angeles 90057.

Times staff writers Solomon Moore and Jill Leovy and correspondent Rob O’Neil contributed to this story.