Record-setting heat cancels afternoon school bus service for a day

Algernon D'Ammassa | Las Cruces Sun-News

LAS CRUCES - For the second consecutive day, Las Cruces rode a record high temperature, prompting the district to halt Monday afternoon bus service for the day.

Las Cruces set a heat record on Sunday when the temperature reached 104 degrees, breaking the 2016 record of 103 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. A heat advisory issued Sunday by the NWS also warned of a loss of night-time cooling, with overnight lows of 75 to 80 degrees.

Isolated thunderstorms were also predicted for southern New Mexico and southwest Texas on Monday night.

Meteorologist Dave Novlan told the Sun-News that after Tuesday local temperatures were expected to cool and settle into a pattern more consistent with monsoon season, dropping temperatures closer to normal by the weekend.

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The temperature peaked at 104 degrees on Monday afternoon.

On Sunday evening the Las Cruces Public Schools cancelled afternoon bus service for students attending summer classes at 20 district elementary schools Monday. Seventeen buses serving students with special needs, the only air-conditioned buses in the district, were in service. General education buses remained parked, however, and families had to arrange to pick up students themselves.

Families with students who walked home were encouraged to make other transportation arrangements, and watch for signs of heat-related illness.

At Central Elementary School in downtown Las Cruces, classes were dismissed at 2:30 as usual, and principal José Maes said the school kept doors and windows shut through the day to preserve the refrigerated air inside the school building. Two students boarded a bus for special needs students, with Maes climbing aboard to assess the heat inside. He said that even with air conditioning, the bus did not feel much cooler inside than it did outside on Las Cruces Avenue.

Back in May, more than a dozen school bus drivers picketed at Solano and Main Streets raising awareness of the dangers of school buses without air conditioning, as the state's K-3 Plus program grows in popularity, drawing students and drivers out into the summer heat. On a hot day, cabin temperature in the bus may exceed outdoor heat by several degrees.

Las Cruces Public Schools spokesman Damien Willis said that exact figures on attendance were variable, but average attendance over the past two weeks averaged 1,900 students, and a July 12 transportation assessment calculated 651 students riding general education buses, which are not air conditioned.

Willis said the district decided on a policy whereby the cutoff for bus service would be a 104 heat index, which combines relative humidity with air temperature.

"When you compound the hot bus effect, we figured that that’s sort of a good threshold and that’s why today was such a concern," Willis said.

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Replacing or retrofitting the buses is cost-prohibitive, especially with transportation budgets being cut in recent years, Willis said. While the canceled service presented an inconvenience to some parents, Maes and Willis said the district had done a good job getting word out to families, utilizing text message chains, automated phone calls, and social media on Sunday evening.

On Monday afternoon, the district announced that regular bus service would resume Tuesday and continue through the week.

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonActor on Twitter.