Seeking Shady Sanctuary From a Scorching Sun

The makeshift city sprang up in a matter of hours, situated near water’s edge like most great civilizations before it.

But instead of occupying brick-and-mortar buildings, the nearly 2,000 people at the Hansen Dam Aquatic Center in Lake View Terrace huddled under umbrellas, tarps and tents -- whatever it took to create a little slice of shadow in the middle of an unforgiving day.

In a land without shade, sometimes it’s necessary to bring your own.

As temperatures hovered in the 90s Saturday -- not quite the record-breaking numbers of previous days, but still scorching -- Patti Vasquez sat in a comfy lawn chair with seven family members under a massive gray Eddie Bauer tent. She’d bought it two years ago for days just like this.

Sure it’s hot, said Vasquez as she chomped on a hot dog. But with this trusty tent, its sides zipped out to create a canopy, they were in no danger of melting.

After several days in summer’s blast furnace, relief was on the minds of many in the Southland.

The weather gods grudgingly obliged, offering a small improvement over previous days, although temperatures still hit the triple digits in many locales. In Chatsworth -- where the thermometer has climbed above 100 for the last six days -- it was 100, compared with 105 on Friday.

At Pierce College in Woodland Hills it was 103, six degrees cooler than Friday. At USC it was 90, compared with 92 on Friday. At Bob Hope Airport, temperatures topped out at 99 on Friday, but registered 93 Saturday.

The National Weather Service forecast for Los Angeles calls for lower temperatures in the next week, with highs by Wednesday in the high 80s.

On Saturday afternoon, storms passed through parts of Southern California, bringing a change of pace. Flash flood and tornado warnings were issued for Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego counties, according to the National Weather Service.

In Ventura County, the sheriff in Lockwood Valley reported flooding at the intersection of Lockwood Valley Road and Boy Scout Camp Road, where two feet of water made the road impassable for part of the afternoon.

In Hemet, in Riverside County, residents were cleaning up after a surprising mid-afternoon deluge that delivered an inch and a half of rain -- along with penny-sized hail and a tornado -- all within an hour.

“The sky was getting darker and darker and then the wind started blowing and then you’ve never seen it rain as hard as it did today,” said Jan Von Hurst, manager of the Parkside Inn in Hemet. “The water was flowing everywhere.”

Hotel employees hired an “extraction company” to bring massive vacuum cleaners to suck up water that seeped into rooms and the hotel’s office.

Some Southern California counties posted record rainfalls, although they hardly amounted to much.

At Lindbergh Field in San Diego, weather spotters reported .01 inches of rain, breaking a former record of only a trace in 1954.

“All they had to do is measure and they automatically broke the record,” said Steven Vanderburg, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in San Diego.

“This is the first time on this date that measurable rain has ever fallen on Lindbergh Field in San Diego,” he said.

Southern California Edison spokesman Steve Conroy said that power demands in the region dropped somewhat, although they were high enough to cause sporadic power outages throughout the day.

The heat wave kept a tight hold Saturday on the rest of the West, as well as the Midwest.

In Phoenix, where the heat has been blamed for 21 deaths in the past week, it was 102. In Omaha, Neb., Rapid City, S.D., and Pueblo, Colo., it was 105. In Springfield, Mo., it was 104, and in Goodland, Kan., 103.

For many cities, it was just the latest in a string of days with temperatures above 100. The forecast in many areas calls for more triple-digit temperatures this week.

In Southern California, Riverside, Orange and San Diego counties saw record high overnight temperatures on Friday.

It was 75 degrees at UC Riverside, breaking the former record of 69 set in 1988; Yorba Linda posted an overnight low of 70, five degrees higher than the previous record, set in 1982; and in Escondido it was 69, one degree higher than the previous record for that date, set in 2000.

During the day, the Hansen aquatic center drew groups large and small, some of them marking their territory in advance with yellow caution tape.

The trunks of the trees ringing two grass lawns near the 1.5-acre pool were not much thicker than a broomstick, and offered little relief from the oppressive sun.

Nearly everyone who entered the gates hurried to begin constructing shelters.

“We’re just trying to get some shade,” said Yolanda Mireles of Los Angeles as she and four family members struggled to attach two blue plastic tarps to a fence and tree.

The family needed “to get out of the house,” she said. “It’s hot in there.”

Nearby, as children splashed and screamed, parents struggled with tent poles and tarps. Some park-goers relied on easy snap-up canopies; others artfully mixed towels with umbrellas that flapped in the wind as their owners wrestled to get them into the ground.

At one end of the makeshift city, Willie Jimenez of Los Angeles stood under a blue umbrella, a spatula in one hand, carefully turning chicken legs on a barbecue he’d brought with him.

Jimenez’s 14-year-old twin daughters were celebrating their birthday, he said, and he thought a visit to the aquatic center would be refreshing.

Looking around his party space, which he’d furnished with an eclectic mix of blue plastic tarp and colorful umbrellas, he shook his head.

“This was a random set-up,” Jimenez said. “I have no idea how many people will show up.”