Different Perspectives...Different Places

By Donna Owen, Rhonda Dickens, and Heather Jancoski

Phoenix- Drink lots of water. Wear a hat. Stay indoors when you can. It’s hot as hell in Sun Devil country.

Hot is hot, yet perspectives differ. Tourists and locals breathed in the 109 degree air as they went about their business on and around the downtown Arizona State University campus Thursday.

The residents said they know how to cope.

Monique Quevedo, a Phoenix native, spends her lunch break outdoors. “I usually carry my fan and plenty of water,” she said.

Nearby, long-time resident Steve Fitch dropped off supplies for a local restaurant. Since his job takes him from refrigerated truck to air-conditioned building, the heat doesn’t bother him much, Smith said.

Although local Andrew Leckey said that he hardly sweats, he carries a hat to protect him from extreme sun exposure and cancer.

Leckey said that people from cooler climates have a harder time adjusting.

“If most of your year you’ve been 70 and then it crept up to 80 and then 90, it isn’t quite as much of a whack to you as it would be if you were coming from somewhere that had colder temperatures.

Tourists said they have their own ways of adapting to temperature extremes.

Andre Mol from Vermont said, “I’m hiding indoors after just crawling out from the convention center.” He said he drinks water and stays in the shade.

Jane Gray from Alaska said that she always wears her hat and applies a lot of sunscreen. “I limit my exposure to the sun. I’m just in the sun when I have to go somewhere,” she said.

Ashley Kivikoski, a student from Illinois, was treated at a hospital after she fainted from the heat after tubing on Salt River. She said that the heat in her state differs.

“We have like 90 degree humidity, and it’s kind of hard to deal with,” she said. Drinking a lot of water is difficult because she does not like it, Kivikoski said.


“That was one of the learning processes of being in Arizona and its sun,” Kivikoski said.


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Local Steve Finch deals with the heat in Phoenix, AZ. (Photo by Donna Owen)