SWEATING IT OUT OUTDOOR WORKERS ENDURE HOT JOBS.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- Letter carrier Jeannie Wells is not above dashing through sprinklers on sizzling hot days -- sans the letter satchel -- to cool off long enough to perform her job.

She delivers mail to about 540 customers each day in Valencia in a truck cooled only by a small fan.

``When I get real hot -- sometimes you feel you're going to pass out -- when it gets past 100, I'll walk up and turn on a hose,'' the U.S. Postal Service employee said. ``The customers just laugh; they think it's hilarious.''

Often the residents along her route brave the heat long enough to bestow water bottles or soda on her. Wells, whose shifts can stretch to 10 hours, totes two quarts of water and sometimes accessorizes her uniform with a damp rag on her neck or head.

Though some days she lugs a 40-pound mailbag on her route of nine years, Wells, 49, turned down the chance to clerk for the agency in cooler quarters.

``I love to be outside,'' she said. She alternates walking and delivering from the truck at curbside. Half her workday is spent on her feet. She emerges from a sprinkler sprint soaking wet and just keeps on trekking.

After a high of 99 degrees Tuesday, the current heat wave in the Santa Clarita Valley could result in readings of 102 today and up to 104 later this week. Temperatures have been near-record for this time of year, but no records had yet been broken by Tuesday, said Jamie Meier, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

Higher-than-normal humidity is making temperatures that normally would be bearable more oppressive, she said. Humidity is expected to increase through next week when the effects of Tropical Storm Bud, off the coast of Baja California, are felt. No heat advisories have been issued, but extreme ultraviolet levels make outdoor activity more dangerous, with skin burning quicker, Meier said.

For mail carriers, an inscription on a historic New York City post office sticks in people's minds: ``Neither snow, nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.''

Postal ``couriers'' are among workers who routinely brave the heat.

Leaf blower in hand, gardener Salvador Ochoa covers himself head to toe for manicuring up to 20 yards a day.

Sunglasses, a straw hat, leather gloves, work boots, long sleeves and pants protect his body but hardly keep Ochoa cool. He is not complaining.

``It's my job,'' the 35-year-old Westland Landscaping worker said. He and his two crew mates drink lots of water and take occasional shade breaks, but always keep the daily schedule in mind.

Traffic engineers in air-conditioned offices recently commissioned red-light cameras at three more local intersections, for a total of eight altogether. So on Tuesday, Florencio Nada, 44, laid down his shovel and manned a pressure washer, jackhammer and vacuum to help install a camera at the intersection of Valencia Boulevard and McBean Parkway.

A hard hat protects his head, and Nada, a worker for San Dimas-based Pacific West Communications, quaffs up to two liters of water a day and catches some shade when he can to keep his insides cool.

Ditto down the street, where exhaust fumes from a circular hand saw blasted through 25-year-old Darrell Potts' jeans as he sliced concrete for city street median improvements.

Water jets might spritz the cars at Valencia Car Wash, but not the workers.

``The car is super hot when it comes out of the carwash, ... and inside the car, wiping down the dashboard, you feel the most hot,'' said Benjamin Gomez, 40, who now writes order tickets under a canopy. ``Sometimes it's 115 (degrees) inside.''

Each hot day hedrinks a gallon of water, stashed in a nearby cooler.

The sun bakes more than the crops on farmer Vicente Suarez's 20-acre Aztec Farms in Fillmore.

``When my husband gets home, he's all burned on his ears. He doesn't like to wear a cap,'' said his wife, Irma.

She is concerned about him because the field work dulls his appetite, and he drinks only water or juice -- no solid food -- during the day. When Vicente, 37, returns home, he often takes a cold shower or joins his brother Enrique as they cool their feet in the Santa Clara River bordering the property.

judy.orourke(at)dailynews.com

[phone]

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

(color) Workers wear protection from serious sunburn but must tolerate heat as they install a new traffic camera Tuesday.

David Crane/Staff Photographer