HEAT CLOSES SCHOOLS; THUNDERSTORMS BRING RELIEF

Late-afternoon thunderstorms Thursday provided relief from the sweltering heat the Cape Girardeau School District has been battling all week.

Students and employees were dismissed from school at mid-day Thursday as heat indexes climbed above 100 degrees in some classrooms. The heat index is the measure of how hot it actually feels to the body. It is based upon the amount of moisture in the air combined with the actual air temperature.

School officials had hoped the break would allow the thunderstorms to cool down temperatures in the district's classrooms, most of which aren't air conditioned. The National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky., recorded a heat index of 96 degrees in Cape Girardeau Thursday afternoon, but Louis J. Schultz School principal John Eck said second- and third-story classrooms in his building were much hotter.

"It was 106 with the heat index on the third level -- 90 percent humidity and 93 degrees," he said.

Schools superintendent Dr. Dan Tallent said the decision to dismiss school was made late in the morning, and students were dismissed between 11:45 a.m. and 12:40 p.m. Although the early dismissal was announced in local media, Tallent said he expected schools to be flooded with calls from parents trying to make arrangements to get children home or to after-school care. The early dismissal also disrupted numerous school activities, he said.

"We generally see this in early fall, but we don't see much of this at this time of year," he said. "It does disrupt activities like tests, play days and other programs. We don't like to dismiss school like this, but when it gets that hot there's very little learning going on."

The shortened instructional day should not prolong the district's school year because the day counts as a full day of school if students attend classes at least three hours.

Eck said Thursday's extreme temperatures were the worst his building had experienced all week. Numerous alternatives to teaching classes in the classrooms were tried, but the dismissal was necessary because students and teachers were becoming ill from the heat, he said.

"They were nauseated, vomiting," he said. "We tried to rotate kids in and out of the library, hold classes outside, take frequent water breaks, and moved some classes to the lower part of the building where it was cooler, but there's just no relief."

Relief arrived later Thursday in the form of severe, rapidly-moving thunderstorms. Small hail and heavy downpours swept through the region followed by tornado watches. Even so, emergency officials in Cape Girardeau, Scott and Alexander counties said they had received few damage reports other than downed trees here and there.