Cold water was a precious resource for the homeless in Los Angeles this week as much of Southern California swelters under a warning for excessive heat with the torrid conditions expanding statewide. Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Wednesday to increase power production and urged residents to reduce electricity use due to the heat. On Skid Row, tents line the streets where thousands of homeless live without access to air conditioning or refrigerators. Many of the cooling centers that they've relied on in past years' heat waves are still closed due to COVID-restrictions. So the sight of a half dozen volunteers wheeling carts full of ice cold water bottles was a welcome sight to many. "It's hotter than heck out here," said Dan, a homeless man huddled with others in the shade of a building to escape the heat. "All of us have to stay outside here, look for shade and count on people coming by with water." "It's super hot out here," said King James, one of the volunteers passing out water bottles. "If you can, freeze it overnight or something like that, so it can be kind of like really cold. So when you come out here in the daytime, people love it." The state's power grid operator issued an order restricting maintenance operations from Aug. 31 through Sept. 6 to help ensure that all generators and transmission lines were online. The California Independent System Operator did not issue a call for voluntary conservation of electricity but said it would be monitoring the weather through the weekend. Its most recent call for voluntary conservation was on Aug. 17. Residents were warned that the conditions could produce unhealthy levels of smog. Excessive-heat watches are taking effect later in the week in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Sacramento Valley and elsewhere in Northern California. "These five days are going to be rough," said Dan, while gulping down his cold water.
