Hot weather doesn’t cool Fresno’s desire to escape COVID-19 shelter-in-place rules
Temperatures approached 100 degrees in some parts of the Valley on Saturday, but that did little to keep some people from taking an opportunity to get out of their houses and into the sunshine after seven weeks of sheltering in place during the coronavirus pandemic.
As more businesses got the green light from state and local leaders to begin restricted reopening with social-distancing requirements, Fresno area residents made the best of a limited situation.
Some chose to simply take a drive and explore the community; others sought out their favorite roadside stands for fresh produce, and still others opted to defy the closure of local parks that remain officially shuttered through the Mother’s Day weekend and enjoy the outdoors.
At Skaggs Bridge Park, a Fresno County park along the San Joaquin River west of Fresno, the gates were shut and the self-service pay shack at the entrance was closed. But that didn’t keep longtime park-goer Robert Allen of Madera and his family from finding their way past the gate and to the river’s edge to seek refuge from the heat.
“I don’t think the park should be closed at all,” Allen, a 56-year-old long-haul truck driver, said. “I grew up coming to this park and the river my whole life. I used to ride my bike here from Kerman when I was 9.”
As one of the children in the group plunged into the river from a rope swing nearby, Allen scoffed at a reporter’s face mask and said he believes masks, social distancing and park closures are unnecessary precautions.
“They shouldn’t be able to stop people from coming down here” to enjoy the river, Allen said.
But on the positive side, he added, the park closure meant they had the entire place pretty much to themselves.
Fresno County Sheriff’s Lt. Matt Alexander said Saturday that his department didn’t have any special teams assigned to monitor the closed county parks on the Mother’s Day weekend. The closures, he said, are the responsibility of the county’s Department of Public Health.
“Our beat deputies do extra checks on the county parks this time of year anyway,” Alexander said. “The parks have been closed for weeks, so the gates should be closed and locked.” And while that may stop vehicles from entering, it doesn’t stop people from walking into the parks.
In northwest Fresno, there was no shade to be found for more than a dozen people standing in line at the Kao’s Strawberry Farm produce stand at Shaw and Grantland avenues. Folks practiced social distancing of six feet, many wearing face masks, as they waited patiently under relentless sunshine for their turn to buy strawberries, beans, lettuce, squash, apricots and other produce.
Cashier Nancy Saetern said the roadside stand has been just as busy most weekends since California adopted shelter-in-place measures nearly two months ago, from the time the stand opens at 9 a.m. until it closes at 6:30 p.m.
Jacob Trujillo of Fresno, who said he lives just down the street from the farmstand, welcomed the opportunity to get out of the house. As some of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions slowly begin to ease, “I’m really seeing more and more people on the streets every day,” he said.
But, he added, he’s wearing a face mask “everywhere I go.”
Another shopper, Laura Marsh, said she made the trip across town from her northeast Fresno home (right along the city limit line with Clovis) to the farmstand for a welcome change of scenery.
“After so much sheltering in place for so long, we just needed to get out and take a drive,” Marsh said. “We’ve got other places like this closer to us, but we really did just want to explore and come over here and buy some fresh produce for Mother’s Day.”
The National Weather Service reported that the high temperature in Fresno on Saturday was expected to reach 97 degrees. For Mother’s Day on Sunday, the afternoon high temperature was forecast to retreat to 93 degrees, with continued cooling into the 80s on Monday and into the high 70s by midweek.
