Feeling the pain of Bay Area’s 2-day heat wave

Friends, from left, Mark Guelld, Mike Theo and Valentin Huerta take a break for water and to cool off during a pick-up basketball game across from Larkey Park June 30, 2015 in Walnut Creek, Calif. The temperatures were projected to break 100 degrees in the area on Tuesday. less Friends, from left, Mark Guelld, Mike Theo and Valentin Huerta take a break for water and to cool off during a pick-up basketball game across from Larkey Park June 30, 2015 in Walnut Creek, Calif. The ... more Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Feeling the pain of Bay Area’s 2-day heat wave 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

On any normal day, ripping through 6-inch slabs of concrete is a brutal job, but when the mercury pushes past 100 degrees, wielding jackhammers, power saws and other heavy tools is a particularly unpleasant task.

Still, early Tuesday afternoon along Buena Vista Avenue in Walnut Creek, a team of laborers poured out sweat and worked to stay on schedule under a baking sun.

“I definitely prefer this work in winter time, I’ll tell you that,” said 19-year-old Nick Perry, who was holding a shop vacuum while 39-year-old Eduardo Fierro operated a 24-inch circular blade that sliced into the curb, kicking out powdered cement that immediately adhered to the men’s sticky skin.

To be sure, some people had it better than others on the first day of a two-day scorcher of a heat wave around the Bay Area. The sizzle was intense enough for the National Weather Service to issue an advisory for most of the region, including interior valleys in the North and East Bay, the San Jose Valley and the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The hottest spots were in the East Bay, in places like Walnut Creek and Livermore, where temperatures hit 102 and 106 respectively. It was day for swimming pools and ice cream and air conditioning.

It was not a day for outdoor labor. And yet, half a block behind Perry and Fierro, Rodney Ericsson wrangled a compressor-powered jackhammer that let out a short burst of shrill thumps as it blasted into the pavement and enveloped him in a dusty cloud.

But for him, time was more of an issue than comfort.

The men, who all work for Concord’s Bay Cities Paving and Grading Inc., had to finish removing sections along a mile and a half of sidewalk by Thursday, when crews will be pouring fresh stuff in time for the Fourth of July weekend.

“We’re working all day,” Ericsson said. “We don’t get to quit early, so the key is to stay hydrated. Yesterday’s water helps today, and today’s water helps tomorrow.”

Hot even in the shade

Not far away, at Larkey Park near First Avenue, there was a noticeably more placid scene. Leysan Garifulina, 29, walked her 2-year-old dachshund named Suzy around the park while her 6-year-old daughter, Juliana, took swim lessons at the public pool.

“It’s too much. It’s exhausting, hot and sweaty,” she said as Suzy found a spot of shade and plopped onto her side, tongue out and side heaving.

“She’s OK,” Garifulina said of her miserable-looking dog. “I think she’s suffering a little bit, but I have to give her the exercise.”

Farther up the park’s grassy hill, under the shade of a big tree, 87-year-old David Chow and his 85-year-old wife sat at a bench in the park. It was hot, but it hadn’t hit triple digits yet. When that happened, Chow said he’d be back home enjoying a cold beer.

“We walk every day,” he said. “Today we’re going out a little earlier. Then we’ll rest indoors in the air conditioning and play Scrabble.”

Chow, a retired architect who grew up in Singapore and moved to the Bay Area half a century ago, noted that the heat can be harder on seniors.

“You have to be a little more careful. Your tolerance is little lower,” he said. But he added that it’s also “a question of attitude.”

“If you accept it,” he said, “then you can take it.”

Cooler around the region

Up in the North Bay, temperatures were a little cooler than in Walnut Creek, but not by much. Santa Rosa hit 98 degrees.

Nonetheless, the heat wave was hardly noticeable in San Francisco, where temperatures in some areas didn’t crack 70. And along the Point Reyes National Seashore, the cool of the ocean was keeping things under 60.

After another furnace blast Wednesday, a significant cool-down will arrive Thursday that could lead to a few showers and even thunderstorms in parts of the East Bay, according to the weather service.

By the long weekend, temperatures will have dropped 10 to 20 degrees across the region, forecasters said.

Tuesday’s hot weather marked a fitting end to the official rainfall season. As the state continues to buckle under four years of drought, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it was another dry year.

Much of the Bay Area received just above 70 percent of the normal amount of rainfall. Parts of the Sierra — where the snowpack this year hit an unprecedented low — got 44 percent of average precipitation, according to data compiled by Jan Null, a forecaster with Golden Gate Weather Services.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky