American Notes Heat Wave

"Is it true what they say about Dixie?/Does the sun really shine all the time?" The lyrics of the old song have been given a cruel gloss by the pitiless two-week-old heat wave that has baked the life out of the Southeast. Ten days of sauna-like temperatures of 100 degrees or more have exacerbated four months of drought, perhaps the worst dry spell in the region's history. So far, 15 people have died of heat prostration. Peanuts, hay and cotton have shriveled; the agricultural loss in Georgia is already estimated at $140 million. In North Carolina, some 200,000 chickens have died -- suffocated, in effect, by the hot, still air. It has been so blistering that thirsty wasps have been furiously stinging people to get the moisture of their perspiration. Tempers have also been blazing: Charlotte, N.C., police report that there were 360 incidents in June of spouses wielding kitchen weapons and fists at one another. And there is no change on the hazy horizon; the high-pressure wall of air centered above the Mississippi delta that has kept temperatures soaring shows no sign of moving on. At week's end some relief was on the way. President Reagan ordered two Air Force cargo jets to ferry hay from Illinois to starving cattle in South Carolina.