Residents finding ways to stay cool amid hot, humid weather

SPRINGFIELD, MA (WGGB/WSHM) - With this extreme heat, many people are searching for ways to stay cool. Some are enjoying community resources like splash pads, while others may be cranking up their air conditioning.

The advice is to stay inside and out of the sun, but some chose to embrace the heat with some fun in the water. However, if that’s not your style, Eversource said they are prepared for everyone to be relying on their air conditioners.

Paige Couture packed up her kids and headed to the Forest Grove splash park in Chicopee on Thursday to cool down and get a meal from the school’s Fresh Food truck.

“We’ve been really busy all summer and we’ve been doing a lot of different things like Six Flags, road trips, things like that, so we’ve been missing our friends and wanted to meet up with them today and the splash pad was a perfect place,” Couture said.

She used this day to catch up with friends in the shade while the children played around in the water and many other parents had the same idea with packed splash pads across the area.

Others may have avoided the outside all together and instead cranked up their air conditioners.

“Traditionally, in the summertime, people use about 40 percent more electricity,” said Eversource spokesperson Priscilla Ress.

However, if everyone had the same idea, that’s a lot of pressure put on the electrical system. Ress told Western Mass News they are prepared.

“We keep an eye on the system and make sure that if we do see any sort of a spike, any sort of an increase in usage that could possibly cause us any sort of a problem on the system, that power gets shifted, so we can actually shift electricity smooth, so that no particular part of the electric system is being overloaded,” Ress explained.

However, if you want to help out the system or even your wallet, Ress said to avoid using big appliances during the hottest hours of the day. For example, do your laundry or run your dishwasher either in the morning or at night.

“Look at those appliances and try not to run those appliances during those hot daytime hours,” Ress added.

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