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August 23, 2006

Fight against heat continues

By Dan Gordon



With air conditioners running full blast and fans aimed at every face, there’s one question on everybody’s mind:

“Where can I get my hands on an industrial ice machine?”

The Athens ISD athletic department is getting two this year. The decision was made to move a second machine into the district’s field house on Monday.

“They said it’ll be here awhile,” AISD Athletic Director Dan Hamrick said. “I’m hoping they’re wrong, but I’ve got a feeling they’re right.”

Hamrick said this is the hottest summer in his memory, and that includes the big heat wave in the 1980s. So aside from getting more ice, the students are practicing outdoors for shorter periods and keeping off the artificial turf at Bruce Field — which runs about 10 degrees hotter than real grass.

“We try to do a lot of our workouts on the grass fields,” he said. “But to say it’s not hot on the grass would be crazy.”

It’s not just athletes who are getting too hot this summer, though — Athens is making history for high temperatures. For the past 14 days, Athens’ average high temperature has been 100 degrees or higher.

The hottest temperature of the year so far here, 104 degrees, hit two consecutive days on Aug. 16 and 17. They were the highest temperatures in Athens since September 2000.

There hasn’t been much rainfall, either — for Athens or anyplace else within a thousand miles. The Keetch-Byram Drought Index, which measures soil moisture to determine the likelihood of forest fires, states that most of Central and East Texas is almost totally parched.

Absolute soil dryness is represented at 800 on the index. At present, about a third of Texas, including Henderson County, is in the 700-800 range.

According to the Texas Forest Service, the state has only been as dry as it is now twice in recent history: the summers of 2000 and 1998. However, from a financial standpoint, the current dry spell is the worst so far. Aside from widespread grass fires, the Texas Cooperative Extension reported Aug. 7 that agricultural losses across the state are projected at $4.1 billion, up from a $2.1 billion loss in 1998.

Texas Forestry Service Fire Risk Assessment Coordinator Tom Spencer said the state has entered the top 3 percent of historical average drought levels, according to an Aug. 21 press release.

“It’s scary, I think, for everybody in the state of Texas,” Hamrick said. “It feels like every day it gets a degree hotter.”

At present, a countywide burn ban is in effect. Burning is only permitted at designated areas outside city limits.

The good news for the Athens area is that the ban appears to be working. According to Athens Fire Department Captain Tres Winn, AFD hasn’t received a wildfire call since Aug. 13.

“Amazingly enough, we’ve been lucky,” Winn said. “People have actually been pretty safe and pretty smart about (the burn ban).”

Henderson County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Pat McWilliams said calls to the sheriff’s office involving illegal burns are also on a downswing.

“There haven’t been as many (recently) as there have been in the past, so apparently, people are using pretty good judgment,” McWilliams said. “People just need to be careful.”

———

e-mail dgordon@athensreview.com

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