Friends of the Kotzschmar hopes to start the 18-month $2.5 million overhaul after it turns 100 on Aug. 22, 2012.

Portland reaches a record-shattering 100 degrees. And while there is an end in sight, the advice for today sounds all-too-familiar: Hit the beach.

Today marked only the fourth time since records have been kept that the temperature in Portland reached 100 degrees.

The scorching heat led to record utility demands, some power outages and the cancellation of racing at Scarborough Downs.

For months, construction has torn up the street and sidewalks, cutting into sales, business owners say.

For Don Lindgren, anything that makes it harder for customers to get to his Rabelais bookstore on Middle Street is a problem.

But when that kind of problem crops up during the summer, “it’s really major.”

‘We come for the food,’ a festival-goer says, ‘and our granddaughter wanted to see the parade.’

A woman from Bar Harbor was critically injured Thursday in a multi-vehicle crash on Interstate 295 in Cumberland that involved a school bus carrying 30 children.