Today's Dallas Morning News has a story about the record breaking 42 day string of 100+ degree temperatures in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1980. Two of those days -- June 26 and 27 -- the temperature reached 113 degrees.
I remember those twin 113 degree days very well. At that time I was a Security Manager for J.C. Penneys and I was assigned to conduct surveillance outside an affiliate of the Penney company in South Dallas. The Corporate office had received information that the store manager of the affiliate was loading unpurchased merchandise into his truck at the loading dock. Another security manager and I were positioned in a field behind the store with cameras and telephoto lenses to record activity at the loading dock and, if necessary, to follow the offender to his residence and take photos of the merchandise being unloaded. Our surveillance began on June 26th and concluded several days later.
Neither of us wanted to waste gas idling our cars to run an airconditioner, and at 113 degrees it was too hot to sit in the car with the windows down, so we dealt with the heat by sitting on the grass and tall weeds and prayed for a breeze.
We did that for exactly one day.
On day two of the surveillance we were both covered with chigger bites. For the remainder of the investigation, we remained inside a car and ran an air conditioner.
It took us about a week to get the photos needed to help make the case.
1 comment:
I remember the heat wave but I was in a different part of Texas building small natural gas processing plants near College Station.
We worked from sunup to past sun down 7 days a week for months. One Friday I went to work and I could tell that I needed to not work outside that day so I went home to Houston. My boss said don't bother ever coming back. I said OK. I showed back up Monday after spending the weekend in A/C and he didn't say a word.
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