Intense summer heat last week didn’t do much to Sweet Home last week.
Temperatures reached as high as 105 degrees early in the week, and in the alley behind The New Era office, a thermometer showed 115 degrees.
The heat prompted a couple of calls for ambulances, a booming business for Reliable Heating and better-than-usual fan sales.
Over about the last week, Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District responded to two recreation-related calls, including the drowning death of a teenager. Ambulances responded to a couple of elderly persons who had symptoms related to the heat.
“Our firefighters had a little difficulty on the structure fire yesterday,” Battalion Chief Guy Smith said. They had to stop and take a break to cool down while fighting the fire, located near White’s Electronics off Pleasant Valley Road Thursday.
With the heat, Smith recommends drinking “lots of water and stay out of the direct sun as much as you can.”
Cascade Hardware owner Bruce Hobbs said that when it gets “super hot, it’s (business) dead. They’re gone. Everybody’s hiding,” but he has been selling more fans recently.
“We’re keeping up quite well as a matter of fact,” City of Sweet Home Plant Supt. Lloyd Emigh said. City residents and businesses have been using about 1.8 million gallons of water per day, about twice the average winter usage.
Every once in awhile, the water plant will lose about a foot or so, Emigh said, but some of that is because School District 55 is on four ten-hour shifts each week. When water levels drop at the treatment plant during the week, the plant has easily caught it back up Friday through Sunday.
Though the plant’s making more water than usual, Emigh said, “this time of year is nice because the river turbidity goes down.”
“It’s been a prolonged summer, that’s for sure,” Dan Dee Sales owner Jack Legg Jr. said, and “fishing’s been great at Green Peter.”
With the long summer, Legg said, “sporting goods have been a lot better this year.”
“We’re like hammered to the wall,” Lori Becker of Reliable Heating said. With the heat so high, customers “have reached the conclusion that it’s just going to stay hot … Mike’s (Cirillo, owner) getting a little bit tired.”
At Thriftway, Manager Mark McDonald said the hot weather hasn’t really affected anything. Ice sales are hot, but that’s normal this time of year anyway.
Usually, after long hot spells, about 10 days, business drops off some, McDonald said. This time around, business has stayed solid.