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American Morning

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Aired August 01, 2001 - 11:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: And there is a dome of dangerously hot air that's parked over the central part of the country again today. Temperatures around 100 reach from Chicago all the way down to Dallas. Minnesota will cool to the 80s today possibly, but the heat index, how the temperature and humidity feel to the body, hit 121 in parts of Iowa yesterday.

Electricity demand in the Chicago area on track to hit a record high again today as people crank up those air conditioners. Fifteen deaths are blamed on the heat this summer and the mercury expected back up near 100 today.

CNN Chicago bureau chief Jeff Flock is joining us from a city that's dealt with danger from the heat before -- Jeff.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. '95 was the big year, Donna. Between 500 and 700 people, depending on how you count them, lost their lives in the heat wave that summer. Since then this city really implementing plans to try and avert any similar disasters. We are out here along the river. It is a construction zone and I guess this is a place where it doesn't get much hotter than this.

You look at the temperature clock over there, time and temperature, it says 86 degrees and it's 86 in the shade right now. I'm with the project superintendent out here of the Wacker Driver reconstruction project, and you've got deadlines and you don't care whether it's hot or not, do you?

MATTHEW BROWN, CONSTRUCTION SUPERVISOR: Well, we have to get the job done. We've got a certain time we have to have LaSalle Street open and we have to hit that date.

FLOCK: That's right. We're standing on the LaSalle Street Bridge right now. What are you doing now, some of the jobs, I mean I'm looking at these guys drilling down here and this is very difficult labor, heavy labor, intensive work.

BROWN: Yes.

FLOCK: What do you do to stay cool?

BROWN: Well, we make sure there's extra water jugs around and our safety department passes out pamphlets on heat stroke and heat exhaustion to make sure everybody knows what the symptoms are of those things. And we watch. If there's a, we're working overtime and we watch the production rates. If they go down a little bit, we try to work eight hours rather than the 10 or overtime hours.

FLOCK: What are you going to do today, a full day or eight hour day?

BROWN: Oh, it's eight hours today.

FLOCK: So you're going to knock off early?

BROWN: Yes. We went eight hours yesterday. It'll be eight hours today.

FLOCK: Matt, I appreciate the time. Thanks very much. Before we get away, I want to point out that yesterday Commonwealth Edison set a record for power demand, all time record yesterday, and they say they expect to exceed that again today. And this is also one of those so-called ozone action days. I know sometimes people's eyes glaze over at that. But just to give you some indication, this is a time when people with breathing problems really have extra problems. Last year, there were a total of two. This year so far in Chicago, this is the eighth so far this year.

So obviously a difficult situation here. We will continue to watch it throughout this day. The only good news, perhaps, is that rain in the forecast overnight which could cool things off. But it'll be a hot day today in Chicago.

For now, I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, reporting live from along the Chicago River downtown.

KELLEY: All right, drink your water, Jeff. Thanks very much.

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