LAS VEGAS – Sin City is buzzing.
Record–hot temperatures last week turned the Las Vegas Valley into a giant oven, forcing authorities to close public pools and museums, driving people indoors for most of the day and baking the sidewalks hot enough to fry an egg.
The Las Vegas Strip, usually packed with tourists, was a shadow of its normal, boisterous self during Thursday afternoon rush hour as the sun beat down on the casino-lined boulevard. Downtown’s Fremont Street was also sparser than usual, with fewer street performers braving the high temperatures to delight wide-eyed out-of-towners.
As the city on Friday faces a possible new record of seven consecutive days of temperatures at or above 115 degrees Fahrenheit, conditions have become intolerable, even for those accustomed to desert climates.
“This heat wave is a whole different animal,” said Dan Berc, warning coordinating meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Las Vegas. “We’re breaking all kinds of records.”
The city set a new all-time heat record of 120 degrees on July 7. On Wednesday, the city broke its previous streak set in 2005 of four consecutive days at or above 115 degrees, before breaking again on Thursday and possibly again on Friday. Extreme heat has gripped much of the western United States this week, with about 42 million people under heat warnings Friday across the region and in the Rockies and southeast Texas. At least 38 people are suspected to have died in six states as a result of heat-related illnesses.
“I’ve lived here in Southern Nevada, in Las Vegas, for 18 years, and it’s definitely warmer this year than it has been in the past,” said Krishell Hadsell, social services manager for Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas. Vegas, Boulder City, Henderson and surrounding cities.
Hadsell oversees more than 40 cooling centers currently operating in Clark County. These facilities, which range from libraries to churches and recreation centers, are climate-controlled refuges that shelter people during the hottest times of the day.
As temperatures in Las Vegas reached record levels, the heat affected people’s daily lives.
Scott Vivier, deputy fire chief for the Henderson Fire Department, said he and his wife have to do housework and grocery shopping early in the morning to beat the heat. At 9:30 a.m., he said, even being in the car is sometimes too much to bear.
“We have become creatures of morning and night,” said Vivier.
Extreme heat has forced the Neon Museum near downtown Las Vegas to temporarily close its doors several times this week.
“Due to an extended warning for extreme heat in the Las Vegas Valley, the Neon Museum is delaying opening until 8:30 p.m.,” officials said on the museum websiteit’s Friday. The museum displays some of the most iconic and historic neon signs in Las Vegas history in an open-air “cemetery.”
Still, museum visitors will likely encounter sweltering conditions even at night. Overnight temperatures this week have hovered in the 90s.
The heat also forced authorities in Henderson to close public pools on Thursday and Friday morning.
“Due to the scorching temperatures, our severe weather closure policy has been activated,” city officials said in a Facebook post.
At the Henderson Fire Department, first responders have found new ways to deal with heat-related emergencies. Firefighters are the first in Southern Nevada to be equipped with “polar capsules” to rescue people suffering from heatstroke. The pods are essentially large, watertight bags filled with ice and water that people can be submerged in to quickly cool their core temperature.
“In the past, unless we could cool the central nervous system, we didn’t have much success,” Vivier said of the response to heatstroke patients. “Now this is the first treatment we have where it’s been proven that in 10 minutes you can get someone’s core temperature from 109 degrees to 102 degrees, which allows us to actually intervene and reverse a life-threatening emergency.”
Since May 1, the Henderson Fire Department has seen a 53 percent increase in calls for heat-related emergencies, according to Vivier.
A heat warning remains in effect through Friday in Las Vegas, but even after temperatures drop slightly, there will be little relief from the heat. This weekend, the city could equal its record of 10 consecutive days with temperatures at or above 110 degrees, Berc said.
“If you can, it’s best to hunker down and stay home,” he said. “It’s very similar to what would happen during a snowstorm in the winter, but here in the summer it’s the opposite.”
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
