Some Idaho services, entities adjust schedules around heat

To maintain safety, Idaho utility services have been forced to adjust their workday around high heat.

With historic temperatures felt throughout Idaho over the past few weeks, various entities throughout the Gem State have been forced to adjust their workdays around the heat to ensure staff safety and help prevent any heat-related illness.

The Ada County Highway District (ACHD) touched on the challenges of lingering high heat in a meeting last week, and noted that there has been no shortage of roadwork during the summer.

“The number of roads that needs to be chip-sealed actually keeps growing and the number of days doesn’t,” Jim Hansen, ACHD commissioner, said.

The workday for ACHD generally finishes prior to the hottest part of the day, but the organization remains cognizant of days when high heat comes early to ensure staff remains safe, Ryan Head, director of ACHD, said.

“There have been days that we’ve been able to end a little bit earlier or needed to end a little earlier,” Head said. “We come back, we work on equipment, we do other things that keep staff safe.”

Though keeping staff out of the heat is a priority, Head said that there are logistical constraints with roadwork that prevent projects from being performed especially early or late in the day, as the road has to heat up to a particular temperature for projects to be carried out.

“It is a challenge because we have to get the road temperatures to a certain (degree) before we can do any type of work and so starting earlier does get more of a challenge,” Head said.

In addition to temperature, the time that ACHD is able to start its day is also dependent on where road work is being done.

“We also have to look at where we are at,” Head said. “If we’re in a residential area, those beeping, backup dump-trucks are not necessarily everyone’s best friend, they’re not their alarm.”

Republic Services, which provides waste and recycling services for Idaho, as well as the U.S. Postal Service are additional service and utility providers in Idaho that have altered their workday around the heat, Hansen said.

For over a week, Republic Services has been collecting trash as early as 5:30 a.m. to work around the midday heat, according to a prior notice on the city of Boise website.

The waste collection company has also been adjusting its hours in Caldwell and Nampa, city spokespeople said.

Nampa Parks and Recreation, which normally operates in the summer from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., has shifted its schedule to operate from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., a city spokesperson said.

Meridian’s city department operations have remained the same, city communications manager Stephany Galbreaith said.

USPS offices reported no changes in service for the cities of Nampa, Caldwell and Meridian. The USPS Boise office did not respond to a request for comment on whether its service had changed recently.

IDAHO WEATHER PROJECTIONS

Current forecasts from the National Weather Service show that an end may be in sight for Idaho’s recent prolonged heat.

An excessive heat warning issued Monday remains in effect until 9 p.m. Wednesday. Temperatures between 104 and 108 degrees can be expected across southwest and west central Idaho. Though the last two weeks has seen cities in the Treasure Valley consistently reach temperatures in the triple digits, the latter half of this week may provide some reprieve for those working outdoors and Idahoans at large.

“We might be able to make 100 again Thursday, but again that’s dubious,” Les Colin, lead meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said. “After that we’re going to cool down into the lower-to-mid 90s for several days.”

For those interested in making weekend plans, Colin said that another triple-digit day is not expected until “at least next Tuesday.”

As far as what can be expected for the future, Colin said that “July is almost always hotter than August,” with the last week of July tending to be the hottest of the month. Idaho’s unusually hot July, however, cannot be used to predict the future.

“Usually July is hotter but as far as relating one month to the next, since people try to find links like that, it’s pretty random,” Colin said. “You can’t really use one month to predict the next very often.”