Water hoses, air conditioning, popsicles — people in the Pioneer Valley used whatever they had handy to beat a heat that hit the mid-90s Monday but felt like triple digits.
Eastern Hampshire County was under a heat advisory for much of the afternoon after high humidity pushed the projected heat index to 100 degrees. The swelter will stay for most of the coming week and peak with a 96-degree high on Thursday, forecasters say, before dropping as thunderstorms roll in late in the week.
“If you can stay inside, stay inside,” National Weather Service spokeswoman Rebecca Gould said. “Drink plenty of water. Stay out of the sun, especially when it’s 10 to 4, when the sun is the strongest. If you’re outside, wear light, loose clothing.”
People endured the day, hampered by the heat. Children went to camp, adults went to work. They ran errands and washed motorcycles and made conversation. It was a Monday, and it was hot.
The kids — 7, 8, 9 years old — were eating lunch, but many of them were still clad in swimsuits from their first swim of the day at the People’s Institute summer camp in Northampton.
“I was dying,” a girl named Helen said of the heat.
“I used to live in the desert — this isn’t hot,” countered a boy named Miles.
“My mom squirted a whole bottle of sunscreen on me,” Helen replied.
The summer camp already has elements that cool off the campers, People’s Institute director Maryann Ryan said, so a heat advisory doesn’t derail a day’s plans. The kids go to the complex’s two pools twice a day, and the building’s large classrooms constantly have air conditioning.
“We try to stay inside when we need to because of the air conditioning,” said Sam Moffett, a teacher for the camp’s class of 6-year-olds. “We make sure when it’s hot like this, if they’re not in the pool or shade, it’s no more than 10 minutes outside.”
Frozen treats also make appearances, and ice water is readily available — Ryan pointed out a pair of large coolers sitting on a picnic table poolside.
“I have 30 bottles of water,” Helen said.
“What about freeze pops?” Ryan asked the group.
“I’m on a diet of freeze pops,” Helen said.
On the side of Route 9 in Hadley, next to a gas station and a Dunkin’ Donuts, a team of 16 construction workers toiled, with their hands and with massive machines.
An excavator heaved powdery dirt into a dump truck called Buster’s Pride. Men and women smoothed the ground with shovels, working patches of earth that were newly exposed after bulldozers had torn the layers of asphalt away.
A police officer directed a line of cars that snaked through the site, their drivers winding between lines of cones, rolling up their windows to keep the clouds of dust out.
No matter what the thermometer reads, the workers will keep grinding away, said Chris Kalinowski, 38, one of the supervisors.
“The heat doesn’t affect us at all,” Kalinowski said. “We’re out here rain or shine, sun or snow or whatever.”
All the workers were experienced, Kalinowski said, and knew how to monitor themselves — to listen to their bodies and watch for signs of dehydration or heat stroke.
“Everybody knows they can take a break if they need one. They can go sit in the shade and put a cool towel on their heads,” Kalinowski said.
Although the day was one of the hottest the team had faced, Kalinowski said they were lucky. Working near gas stations made it easier to get snacks and drinks when they needed them, and strangers had even stopped by with gifts.
“People have been driving by and dropping off bottles of water for us, and a guy last week even dropped off two cases of Gatorade,” Kalinowski said. “Things could be worse.”
Matt Boulanger jammed another branch into the Bri-Mar trailer and stood sweating in his gray Carhartt tank top and camouflage hat.
Boulanger, 28, and a friend had been at the house on Westview Terrace in Easthampton since 6:30 a.m., when they started trimming branches as a favor to Boulanger’s grandfather, who lives in the house. By a little after 1 p.m., they were finishing up.
A plumber by trade, Boulanger didn’t have any secrets to beating the heat — he just kept a cooler of ice water and tried to stay in the shade as much as possible. But even with the heat, he said, he appreciated the change of pace from his job.
“I love it,” he said. “I’d rather be outside.”
The man had finished washing his motorcycle, the Honda with the “Transformers” paint job — half Autobot, half Decepticon, even though he prefers the latter. Now his 7-year-old daughter, who had helped him wash it, was darting in and out of the cool water from the hose in front of a row of apartments at Florence Heights in Northampton.
“It at least keeps the kids a little busy and cool and keep from dehydration,” the man, Angel, said of the chore. Declining to give his last name, he added: “It gets pretty hot, especially in the homes.”
Even for residents who have air conditioning — they have to provide their own units, Angel said — being in the water is better than being inside during the heat wave.
“You cool down a lot faster (in the water) than the air conditioning,” he said. “You got it in the living room, the living room is kind of big, so it takes longer to cool down.”
His daughter stuck a hand into the hose’s path, sending a spray of water around her.
“What are you doing?” he teased her.
She grinned and put her whole body in the cool stream.
They’d kept busy despite the heat, and now the friends sat on a porch in a senior community off Route 9 in Hadley, watching the clouds gather overhead.
Judy Roncalli, 74, adjusted her sunglasses and took sips from a blue plastic cup. She’d just come back from a yoga class at the YMCA — a nice gig because of the air conditioning.
“It was that or pool aerobics,” Roncalli said. “It’s good to be in there, getting some exercise. Too good to pass up.”
Donnie Wright, 65, sat in a lawn chair beside her, crunching ice between his teeth.
Mary Sadowski, 84, rested on her walker and went through her mail after a humid trek to the mailbox. She’d spent the day running errands — a trip to Wal-Mart, to the grocery and some cleaning work in her bathroom, although her helper hadn’t shown up.
“That’s what happens when you get old, you just gotta move,” Sadowski said.
Their street was quiet as usual — some people never showed their faces, Roncalli said — but sometimes people socialized in the community building at the end of the cul-de-sac. There they could sit in the air conditioning, watch television or play bridge.
“They have magazines in there but they’re probably a hundred years old,” Sadowski said.
Roncalli glanced at her flowers, which surrounded her in several small pots and in a tidy flowerbed outside her house. They’d held up surprisingly well despite the drought, she said, especially the sunflowers.
“We don’t have a water hookup, they took that away three years ago,” Roncalli said. “So they just have to wait for the rain.”
The friends had no plans for the rest of the afternoon, except to keep sitting as they were, sharing stories and watching clouds and neighbors go by.
Wright explained, “Too damn hot to do anything anyway.”