Like a sweaty stranger who sidles up too close in an airless waiting room, a heat wave settled in over the weekend in the Chicago area, forcing people to escape or confront it.
The heat made its presence felt throughout the area Sunday, driving Taste of Chicago patrons to plunge into a fountain and causing senior citizens to evacuate a South Side high-rise after the power went out.
And the heat showed every intention of sticking around Monday, forecasters said.
“We expect another warm day [Monday] before a front gets here,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Nelson. “But once it does get past, it will drop the temperature about 10 degrees.”
Jet stream winds blew some of the Southwest’s heat wave this way, raising the temperature to 96 degrees at Northerly Island, the area’s hot spot, Nelson said. The heat index reached 103 degrees.
Temperatures topped 93 degrees at O’Hare International and Midway Airports and 94 degrees in Wheeling.
About 1,800 Commonwealth Edison customers on the South Side lost power about 1:20 p.m. when a substation feeder line failed, said company spokesman John Dewey. One of the buildings affected was a senior citizens’ high-rise in the 9200 block of South Kimbark Avenue, Dewey said. The residents took refuge from the heat on cooling buses nearby while crews worked to restore service.
One resident and a visitor were taken to hospitals as a precaution, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Joe Roccasalva.
Unofficial figures showed that electricity demand peaked in the afternoon at about 19,000 megawatts, short of the record 23,600 megawatts set last August, Dewey said.
The senior center wasn’t the only place where people fled from the heat.
About 20 people visited the city’s only 24-hour cooling center open Sunday, near Kedzie Avenue and Madison Street on the West Side, said Sheryl McGill, commissioner of the city’s Department of Human Services.
Carl McCoy came because he wanted just one thing when he left church and he wasn’t going to find it at home: air conditioning.
With a textbook about the Old Testament in hand, McCoy went to the cooling center. Beneath the soft buzz of churning cool air, three others quietly sat with him. One woman read a magazine, and another, eyes closed, listened to music on a Walkman.
“It’s too hot to cook and definitely too hot to sit up in the house watching TV,” McCoy said. “Even the park is too hot.”
At sweltering intersections, entrepreneurs flocked to sell water and pop.
Chanting “dollar, dollar,” Joe Henderson, 44, was in constant motion on the West Side as he roamed the northbound lanes of Western Avenue at Cermak Road, every honk seizing his attention.
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Every third red light, he strode back to his cooler and swapped the bottles in his hand for those deepest in the ice.
“They don’t want it hot, especially when they’re spending their money,” he said.
By 4 p.m., Henderson had made only $3 profit. He said he would be out until 7:30 or 8 p.m. if that was how long it would take to sell his cases.
Across Western, Andre Llinas, 22, and his cousin Cain Accettura, 14, fared better. Llinas had paid $4 per case of water (24 bottles), which he was selling for $1 each. They sold three cases Saturday, and Sunday they were halfway through their second by mid-afternoon.
“Oh, I’ve made my money back,” Llinas said, bottles of water and Orange Crush in one hand and a stack of bills in the other. “It’s hot, but I stay in the shade as much as possible and drink the water.”
As the Taste wound down Sunday, people found ways to cool off. Randy and Mary Beaton and sons James, 12, and Chris, 19, drove from Crestwood to enjoy the final day of the festival.
The family couldn’t resist stopping at the Millennium Park water fountain to cool off. If their clothes were dripping with sweat before, standing beneath the cascade — along with hundreds of others — had them feeling refreshed and ready to eat.
For the Beatons, a hot day is the best time to take in the Taste. It beats heating up their own kitchen.
“The hotter the better,” Randy Beaton said. “It fits right in with the whole idea of barbecue.”
At the Fireplace Inn stand at the Taste, Kyle Shimmon was taking the heat from two charcoal grills as he turned sizzling ribs and brushed on sauce. The coals should be about 500 degrees to do ribs right, he said.
“You get used to it,” he said, taking a break and sipping a beer. “It’s not a job for everybody.”
Two Chicago Transit Authority buses stood at each end of Buckingham Fountain, air conditioners humming, for anyone who wanted respite from the heat.
“She said she was going to check it out and come back,” said Vanessa Taylor, motioning to her friend Pam Redd in the seat ahead of her on the bus at the south end of the fountain. “And she never did come back.”
Leland Mosley and his son, Lance, 5, didn’t hesitate shelling out tickets when they saw the Taste’s water slide drenching passengers.
“It’s hot,” the dad said as they stepped off the ride, soaking wet. “Water’s cool. We’re going to get wet.”
At North Avenue Beach, Aurora resident Edwina Calderon and her family scuttled across the scalding sand to set up blankets and picnic gear.
It had been one of six beaches closed for swimming the day before because of high E. coli bacteria counts, but a green flag indicated the water was safe for a dip. And Calderon wasn’t about to be deterred from a trip to the lake on the hottest day this year.
“We’ve been planning this trip for like two weeks, so we decided just to come and take the kids out,” she said. “Cool off.”
All 29 city beaches were open for those who wished to swim, said Jessica Maxey-Faulkner, Chicago Park District spokeswoman.
Two beaches, Rainbow and South Shore, were flying yellow flags, cautioning swimmers that babies and toddlers, the elderly and those with weak immune systems would be better off finding another place to splash.
At North Avenue, Anna Strombeck of Gothenburg, Sweden, was glad to find the beach open for swimming. She had shown up Saturday, only to find that swimming was prohibited.
“People were lining up to use the [outdoor] showers to cool off,” she said.
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