‘You got to make sure you’re hydrated’: Las Vegas copes with early June heat
It was 111 degrees in Las Vegas Thursday, a new record for the earliest date to get that hot.
The official measuring station at Harry Reid International Airport reached this peak at 3:35 p.m. Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
The Clark County Fire Department logged 12 “heat exposure” calls between Wednesday morning through Thursday at 2:30 p.m., according to Clark County spokeswoman Stacey Welling. Nine of them resulted in transports to local hospitals.
Lamar Saliard said he took shelter from the sun at the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center on Thursday to protect himself and his dog, Remy.
“I have to make sure she’s hydrated because she has fur,” Saliard said. “She can pass away, easily, in the heat.”
An excessive heat warning issued by the National Weather Service began at 10 a.m. Wednesday and runs through 9 p.m. Saturday. It covers all of the region except for the Spring Mountains.
Las Vegas’ airport reached the forecast high 0f 108 Wednesday, a degree short of the record for June 5, set in 2016.
Thursday tied the record for the hottest June 6 in Las Vegas, set in 2010, when the temperature reached 110, then broke that record when the mercury crept up to 111.
As a dome of high pressure builds over the entire West, Thursday was projected to be the hottest day of the weeklong stretch.
In and around Las Vegas City Hall, people were going about their days as usual amid the triple-digit temperatures.
As he walked out of the hall, city planner Keith Morphis was keeping cool with an ice cream bar he snagged from an early voting event.
Morphis, who has lived in town for two decades, said the scorching heat doesn’t really affect him considerably.
“It does make you want to stay inside and not really go outside too much,” he conceded.
According to Las Vegas City Clerk LuAnn Holmes, the free ice cream in city hall was supposed to incentivize people to come vote.
Holmes said she didn’t think the unprecedented heat would hamper turnout at the event.
“I mean, it’s Las Vegas,” Holmes added. “And we’re kind of used to it here.”
Cheran Schick, a voter, said the off-the-charts heat was getting her all “fired up” to vote for former President Donald Trump.
Another voter, Stephen Franklin, said he moved to Las Vegas 24 years ago and the blazing heat makes him think back to living in St. Louis.
“I think that I did not scrape any ice or shovel any snow here last February — and so it’s a tradeoff I’m probably cool with,” he said.
Kelly Woods, who was working the voting event, said she believed people who were genuinely committed to voting would do so despite the severe weather.
About two miles from city hall up Main Street, many people like Saliard were seeking a reprieve from the unrelenting sun at the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center.
Dennis Trowbridge, 57, said he was enjoying the center’s air-conditioning while he waited to be issued a storage bin for his belongings. To shield himself from the blistering heat on a daily basis, Trowbridge rides city buses and hangs out in libraries, he said.
Trowbridge, who is currently a homeless person, said he has a background living in cities steamier than Las Vegas, including Laughlin and Bullhead City, Arizona.
“You got to make sure you’re hydrated,” he said. “Not just with water every day — a couple of times a day, you want to throw in some electrolytes.”
Contact Peter Breen at pbreen@reviewjournal.com and Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com.