Beat the heat: Region gets creative under sweeping heat wave

Usually when it’s hot out, Jerry Vanbavel ensconces himself in his Reardan-area home “under a swamp cooler.” After 35-years working as a tar roofer it’s hard to blame the man.

But on Friday, Vanbavel had to enter the blistering heat. He was selling food at the annual Post Falls Festival.

So Vanbavel switched to plan B.

“I sit in the shade and drink whiskey,” he said. “It works pretty good.”

As temperatures climbed past the 100 degree mark Friday, people throughout the Spokane, Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene region found respite from the heat in whatever ways they could.

For some, like Vanbavel, that meant finding a spot of shade and drinking a cold one.

For others, like Taylor Halborsen and Hailee Hieronymus, the sun was too much of a draw. The two Spokane residents drove to Coeur d’Alene and spread out on the beach. By 3:30 p.m. they’d been lying in the sun for three hours.

They made sure to get in the lake every five minutes and to drink lots of water, Halborsen said. Later in the afternoon, they planned to get ice cream.

At Yap-Keehn-Um Beach, 8-year-old Joseph Mason lounged in an inflatable inner tube while waves from passing boats lapped at his feet. His mother, Katrina Mason, said they’d driven from Spokane earlier in the day.

Her trick for staying cool?

“Lots of water,” she said. “And staying by the water.”

Here’s a look at how people are escaping – and embracing – the heat wave that’s sweeping over the Spokane area.

Oases in the city

At the Garland Theater, manager Kiele Rogalski said there’s been a noticeable bump in the number of moviegoers since temperatures started hovering in the 90s.

“I would say that we are definitely getting some more people in here because everyone is walking around and the kids are out of school,” Rogalski said. “I think it’s sort of nice to come in and rest for an hour or two.”

Movie theaters can be notoriously chilly, but the Garland has kept its screening room at a moderate 77 degrees, Rogalski said.

Still, she said, “we always get people complaining that it’s too cold.” One patron even brought a blanket to a matinee on Friday, she said.

The heat also has driven many visitors to the Wonderland Family Fun Center on North Division Street, said employee Andrew O’Connor.

“We’ve seen a big flux of people coming in, especially for the bumper boats,” which are equipped with squirt guns and float in a pool with a fountain, O’Connor said.

“We also have a big jug of free ice water that we constantly refill just to make sure everyone’s body temperature stays at a minimum” while romping around the indoor/outdoor fun center, he said.

Spokane County’s campground in Liberty Lake is booked full through the weekend, and the county’s aquatic center at Freya Street and East 61st Avenue has been operating at its capacity of 500 visitors, said Doug Chase, the county’s parks and recreation director.

The county’s golf courses have been busy, too, but when afternoon temperatures soar into the 90s, most visitors tee off in the mornings and evenings, Chase said.

Todd Beck, the owner of Beck’s Harvest House in Green Bluff, said business is only beginning to pick up because the fruit harvest is a few weeks behind last year’s. His family grows a wide variety of fruit on 37 acres and sells products from neighboring farms in the Harvest House store.

There were a few people collecting raspberries in the pick-it-yourself orchard on Friday afternoon. Cherries should be ready in about a week, peaches in about three weeks, Beck said.

“We never really had a spring,” he said. “It just kind of drug along, so everything is a little late this year.”

There were, however, about a dozen people dining on the Harvest House’s covered patio, where fans and cool water misters tempered the muggy heat.

“It’s amazing,” Beck said. “Just a few of those things on the patio brings the temperature down a few degrees.”