Baby, it’s hot outside

Adolfo Garza can tell you all about the sweltering Hilo heat last month and this month. This is his first summer living in town, and he has been baking in his second-floor apartment in the Waiakea Houselots neighborhood.

He works as a radiology technician in an air-conditioned urgent care clinic in central Hilo during the day, and has been deliberately putting in extra hours on the job to avoid the heat, he said. But his apartment has just one fan, and at night there is no escape.

“Nights are the worst — it’s the humidity,” said Garza, 32. “It’s almost like an attic, and the heat rises, and man, that heat just stays up there.”

As hot as the rest of the state has been this summer, Hilo has endured an almost freakish run of sluggish, steamy days, one right after another.

The daily high temperatures in Hilo matched or exceeded their all-time record highs for the date a total of 18 times since mid-August, according to the National Weather Service.

The temperature in normally balmy Hilo climbed into the 90s seven times since Aug. 17, and on three days earlier this month — on Sept. 1, 2 and 6 — Hilo’s peak temperatures topped the previous record highs by four degrees.

The hot and voggy weather has East Hawaii residents searching for relief, with air conditioners and electric fans selling fast.

“Everybody’s coming in for fans, but a‘ole (no) fans,” said Tony Gionson, a sales associate at the Ace Hardware store in Hilo. The store restocked its inventory last week, but overheated shoppers again cleared the shelves of all electric fans in a day, he said.

Business has been brisk at ice cream and shave ice shops, and Garza said he has been doing “a ton of surfing” to get out of his apartment to cool off. He also joins his Hilo neighbors at the Ice Pond with its cold natural spring near Reed’s Bay, jumping in just to enjoy the chill.

At times all of the available parking has been taken up at popular swim spots in Keaukaha such as Richardson’s and Onekahakaha beach parks, and heat-sufferers have taken refuge at the county’s Kawamoto Swim Stadium. Lifeguard Ethan Siemens estimated twice the normal number of people have been using the pool, with 400 to 500 people visiting each day.

“They talk about trying to beat the heat, but cannot really, but at least you can still get in the water,” Siemens said. “There’s no way to escape it.”

On especially humid says, “they will literally be back-to-back in the shallow end,” he said. “We have to keep people from swimming too close to the diving board because there’s nowhere else for them to go.”

Garza, a Jehovah’s Witness, attends church events twice a week, and said dressing in a suit and tie has become an ordeal.

“I dread getting dressed for that, because I’m so sweaty by the time I put on my coat, it’s terrible,” he said.

One East Hawaii resident with a different take on the heat is Mike Sullivan, 34, who has been training for almost a year for his first Ironman Triathlon in Kona next month. He rode 107 miles in six hours on Saturday in “unreal” heat, but hopes it will give him an edge in the race.

“I think it’s good training,” he said. “Other people who show up from around the world for the race won’t be adapted to the humidity or the heat.”