THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, JULY 9, 2012
PAGE 4
WEATHER
Midwesterners battle major heat wave
Children play in the spray of an open fire hydrant on July 5, 2012 on Chicago's south side. Chicago hit 103 degrees as oppressive heat slams the middle of the country with record temperatures that aren't going away after the sun goes down.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROFT — When the air conditioner stopped in Ashley Jackson's Southfield, Mich., home, so too did normal conversations and nightly rest.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
"Inside the house it was 91 degrees. ... I wasn't talking to anybody. Nobody was talking to anybody," said Jackson, 23, who works as a short-order cook in Detroit. "We mostly slept, but it was hard to sleep because of the heat. I probably got about four hours of sleep each night."
St. Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis and several other Midwest cities have broken heat records this week. And with even low temperatures setting record highs, some residents have no means of relief, day or night.
The National Weather Service said the record-breaking heat that has baked the nation's midsection for several days was slowly moving into the mid-Atlantic states and Northeast. Excessive-heat warnings remained in
place Friday for all of Iowa, Indiana and Illinois as well as much of Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Kentucky.
St. Louis hit a record high of 105 on Thursday and a record low of 83
it doesn't take as much time to reach high temperatures in the low 100s," said Marcia Cronce, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "You know it'll be a warm day when you start out at 80 degrees."
Not even the setting of the sun brought respite as temperatures hovered around 90 degrees downtown at 10 p.m. Some visitors made their way to Millennium Park to splash in the park's kid-friendly Crown Fountain.
In Chicago on Thursday, the Shedd Aquarium lost power as temperatures soared to 103 degrees, a record for July 5. Officials said emergency generators immediately kicked in and the outage never threatened any of animals, but several hundred visitors were sent back out into the heat.
"It's hotter here than it is in Arizona," said Mary Dominis, of Tempel, who brought her daughter along to play in the water. "I came here to visit my family and to get away from the heat of Arizona."
— the second day in a row the city has broken records for both temperatures. Temperatures didn't fall below 82 in Chicago, 78 in Milwaukee and 77 in Indianapolis.
"When it doesn't cool down at night,the poor animals don't have a chance to cool down."
DEAN HINES,
RANCH OWNER
"When a day starts out that warm,
Ruben Davila, 32,
of Northern California,
was also in Chicago
visiting family,
and at the park seek
some cool relief.
"The heat has made it difficult to walk around and view the sites" said Davila, who was accompanied by his wife and three children.
The heat has been much worse than a mere inconvenience for some. St. Louis officials have reported three heat-related deaths in recent days, and officials in the Chicago area said two
people there may have died due to heat Wednesday. A coroner in Rock County, Wis., said the death of an 83-yearold woman there was definitely due to the heat. In Tennessee, authorities have opened a criminal investigation into last week's heat deaths of two young brothers.
It was hot enough to buckle roadways. The Wisconsin State Patrol said the pavement buckled Thursday on Interstate 90 westbound near Madison and on Interstate 39 northbound near Portage, among other places.
Saturday afternoon, Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard canceled all summer school classes Friday.
With the National Weather Service's heat warning for the city lasting until
Meanwhile, many cities have tried to help by opening cooling centers and extending the hours for their public pools. In some areas, recent storms have knocked out electricity; about 137,000 people in Michigan were without power Friday as temperatures moved steadily toward the 100-degree mark.
Lack of electricity also is likely to compound the misery for many in the storm-ravaged East as the dangerous
temperatures move in.
The heat has also taken a toll on agriculture.
Dean Hines, the owner of Hines Ranch Inc. in the western Wisconsin town of Ellsworth, said he found one of his 80 dairy cows dead Thursday, an apparent victim of the heat. He said he was worried about the rest of his herd, in terms of death toll, reproductive consequences and milk production.
"We're using fans and misters to keep them cool," he said. "It's been terrible. When it doesn't cool down at night, the poor animals don't have a chance to cool down."
WILDLIFE
Baby eagle survives wildfire but cannot fly for a year
miraculously survived a Utah wildfire last month.
SALT LAKE CITY — A baby golden eagle is recovering at a wildlife rehabilitation facility after officials say it
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kent Keller told The Salt Lake Tribune he feared the worst when he returned to the nest site west of Utah Lake to retrieve a leg band he had attached to the male eaglet June 1.
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But the veteran Utah Division of Wildlife Resources volunteer found the burned bird alive on June 28 behind a charred tree, about 25 feet below the nest that was burned to a crisp in the 5.500-acre Dump Fire near Saratoga Springs.
"I thought there was no chance he would be alive. I was stunned when I saw him standing there." Keller said.
"I thought maybe I could rebuild the nest a little bit, but I took a good look at him and realized that was not going
to happen."
The 70-day-old eaglet had suffered burns on his talons, beak, head and wings. His flight feathers were melted down to within an inch or two of his wing and tail.
Keller realized the eagle would not fly for at least a year and that the parents eventually would stop providing food. Not a stick from the nest was left after the fire sparked by target shooters swept through
"I've seen nests burn before, but this is the first year I have seen one burn with young in it," he told the Tribune. "They are usually long gone and flying when fire season starts."
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