The heat is on; High temps unusual, but the methods to stay safe remain constant

Aug. 11—BROOKFIELD, Ohio — When Randy Clark played high school football almost 40 years ago, coaches were stingy with water breaks.

Back then, coaches believed that a little deprivation made players tougher.

Clark, who is Brookfield High School's varsity coach, and his peers know better now. While the Warriors don't have scheduled full-team water breaks during summer practices, he makes sure the players get plenty of water.

"Anytime you're not on a drill, you're free to go get water," said Clark, who opens his 19th season as the Warriors' head coach next Friday at Norwayne.

This season, Brookfield and other Ohio schools were able to run practices throughout the entire month of July, with full-pad heat-acclimatization workouts in the month's final week. Pennsylvania schools, which open their high school football seasons a week later than their Ohio counterparts, began heat-acclimatization training Monday.

Clark said Thursday that this week's weather conditions were more mild than those toward the end of July — especially on Friday, July 28, when temperatures soared into the 90s.

"This was the first year when we went two-a-days in the morning," he said. In the past, the coach ran practices in the morning and evening during preseason camp.

Everyone — not just high school athletes — have been feeling the heat this summer. The Associated Press reported last month that the planet logged the hottest June on record this year.

And July might have been even worse — July 4 became the hottest day, globally, since meteorologists began keeping track. Independence Day held the record for all of one day.

And July 6 was even hotter than July 5, which was hotter than July 4, which was hotter than any other day before it.

Senior safety

The extreme heat causes difficulties for everyone, including senior citizens, who face particular threats from high temperatures, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The federal agency says seniors are more susceptible than their younger counterparts to sudden changes in temperature, and often have medical conditions that make them vulnerable.

While seniors might not adapt to heat as well as a high school athlete, the CDC offers some of the same remedies, starting with hydration. The CDC also recommends staying indoors with air conditioning, either at home or in a cooling center.

The Greenville Senior Community Center serves as a cooling center during the summer and a warming center during wintertime power outages. Director Linda Leetch said most seniors have air conditioning in their homes. In the summer, she said the center's clients come in more for the socialization and programming than to escape the heat.

"We have announced that they are welcome to be here," she said. "We try to keep track of them, check up on them."

On one recent Friday morning, the center was packed for a bingo game, with Becky Buckwalter of Helping Hands, an agency that provides community services and education sessions for seniors at the center.

Friends Tom Seiple and Chuck Eck of Greenville, and husband-and-wife Mary Ann and Ken Musial of Mercer sat around one table, bingo cards and chips for marking numbers at the ready.

"Not very well," Eck said when asked how he was doing with the heat. "I don't like the hot, humid weather. I don't like the cold."

But all of them were adjusting, including the Musials, who alter their gardening and yard work schedules to accommodate the conditions.

"We don't do much when it's hot outside," Ken said. "When it cools off, we go out and do things like cut the grass."

As lunch approached and the bingo game wrapped up, a yoga ball exercise session, led by Monica Ferguson, rolled to an end.

Ferguson said the center officials are aware of heat challenges on seniors — "They always have ice water here," she said.

Exercise participant Linda Lou Lawton of Greenville stays upbeat, even as she faces thrice-a-week dialysis sessions in Hermitage. A 68-year-old retired executive assistant at UPMC Schools of Nursing, she is hoping for a kidney transplant.

Doctors told her she had to lose 75 pounds to be healthy enough for a transplant, but she blew right through that threshold. Lawton has lost 125 pounds. So far.

"I bought all new clothes, so that's nice," she said.

Lawton usually doesn't use air conditioning, but says she's doing fine without it. She often needs a blanket during her dialysis appointments, even during the summer.

"It's hard because it costs too much money to run the air conditioning but if you open your windows, it's good.

'Safety number one'

Staying inside isn't really an option for some people, like those on Alec Grandelis' PennDOT road crew. Grandelis, a foreman for the state transportation agency, had a team out July 31 in Delaware Township working on shoulder cutting — which involved peeling back grass and dirt overgrowing along the road's edge.

The process helps prevent road deterioration, said Grandelis, of Franklin, Venango County.

"We peel back the grass so water can get off the road and into the ditch," he said.

PennDOT crews, from supervisors to the last worker hired, are trained in how to deal with heat, including hydration and recognizing the signs of heat exhaustion.

"We keep a close eye on everybody and make sure they're talking normally, and they're getting plenty of water," Grandelis said. "If they look exerted, they come and sit in the crew cab, and get cooled off.

"Safety is number one. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that everybody goes home the way they came in and that's upright. If it's too hot, we shut it down."

"Shut it down" happens rarely. Grandelis said his crew stopped work only a few minutes early on July 28, the day temperatures went into the 90s.

Heat isn't even the number one hazard for PennDOT road crews, said Grandelis and PennDOT District 1 spokesperson Saxon Daugherty.

"We always have traffic that goes a little too fast," Daugherty said. "We want everyone to go home at the end of the night."

He said distracted driving is a significant challenge — "People distracted not only by their phones, but maybe changing music in their car, chatting with friends in the back seat of the car, eating a meal on the way to work."

Daugherty said drivers should be mindful traveling through work zones and "expect the unexpected."

It's all about mindfulness

Mindfulness is also a recommended way to beat the heat — paying attention to hydration, and looking for signs of distress.

And, when all else fails, a swig of pickle juice. Clark, the Brookfield football coach, said the unorthodox drink helps stave off the effects of fluid and mineral loss through exertion.

Clark said this week's weather conditions were more mild than those toward the end of July, but he knows to expect trouble on opening night, when players will give their maximum effort.

The coach also noted that preliminary forecasts for Friday call for high temperatures in the 80s, and troublesome heat could persist for the season's first few weeks until summer fades into fall.

"It doesn't matter what you do," Clark said. "A school our size, where the kids are playing both ways, it's going to affect them. They're going to cramp."