Rising before dawn and working 10 or more hours in the Alabama heat makes even the most weathered Habitat volunteer droop.
By 2 p.m. Tuesday, the mercury has risen to 87 degrees, but the 60 percent humidity makes it feel like 93 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
Kristin Hennessey, 25, of Oakland, Calif., reclines on a dirt hillside after lunch while others discover that cardboard makes a comfortable nap pad.
Hennessey takes frequent water breaks while hammering. “There are beverages everywhere, and all kinds of shade. It makes it easier to get back on the roof.”
Others from above the Mason-Dixon Line find the heat tough.
“It’s 60 degrees at home,” says Ann Mugford of Swanzey, N.H., while she eats lunch in the shady comfort of a tent.
In New Hampshire, a temperature spike above 90 degrees is a heat wave and usually only lasts a few days, she says.
Some international volunteers have been adjusting to a new season. Mike, who declines to give his last name, left mild, winter temperatures in Sydney, Australia.
He rests in the midday shade with a can of Habitat for Humanity water in hand. Despite the heat, he says he’s enjoyed his Alabama experience.
“I’ve tried collard greens, tried okra and black-eyed peas,” he says. “All of them, I love.”
Some workers are fortunate enough to have a “house mother” distributing water and picking up trash.
“I keep the water going,” says Mary Ann Hitt, an Anniston retiree and first-time Habitat volunteer. One volunteer estimates Hitt and another woman have supplied five cases of water cans to the roof workers just during Tuesday morning.
“They’re floating out of here, they’re giving us so much water,” Hitt says.
As of Tuesday morning, nurses and doctors at the first-aid station had treated just four volunteers for heat-related illnesses.
