Last year set a record for heat related deaths in the United States,
and this year is already shaping up to be worse in terms of high
temperatures. Stephanie Sai is back now with this report from Phoenix,
America. Copa County, Arizona, which has been at the center of heat
related deaths and were rising homelessness in recent years, is making
even more people vulnerable to extreme heat.
Klay. Hatfield has been living in this tent on a sidewalk in downtown
Phoenix for the last three months, 69
So I keep the table covered with a towel. So that table doesn't get
hot. Then I got towels. I put over the chair, so it doesn't get hot
trying to cut down all the radiant heat that I can
When we visited him in early June, it got up to 100 degrees and he
was bracing for hotter days to come. But you can only weatherproof
a tent so much. I'm not going to get it to a comfortable level,
hoping to do is achieve liveable level.
110 is going to kill me. 90 I can live with. Have you thought about
going to a shelter during the summer months? Well, here's the problem
with the shelters is
About five or six o'clock in the morning.
You have to leave the shelter.
So then, and the hot, miserable time of the day. You're out on the
street with nowhere to go. I tried it and it was miserable. There
is somewhere he can go. His tent is just a few 100 yards from a daytime
center for homeless seniors.
Even a short walk in this heat can scald the soles of your shoes.
At the Justice Center. Hatfield can get a meal and a cold shower.
If I wasn't able to come here and sit and get water and just cool
off and stay out of the heat, I wouldn't make it.
Because I'm that sensitive to the the heat.
Wouldn't be able to make it is not hyperbole. The elderly and unhappy
housed are among the most vulnerable to heat related illness and
death. But Deborah Hernandez has the added risk factor of a serious
heart condition. Extremely concerned because of already passed out
once
Just from the heat, and I was not in the direct sun
recently became homeless. The house that I was living in. I was renting
sold. I was hit by a drunk driver, so I lost my car. I went and rented
a hotel room. I was paying up $2200 a month just for hotel rooms.
As she waits for the insurance claim on her wrecked car to be paid.
She's just trying to survive her first summer without housing.
Is an annual emergency here. The firefighters and paramedics and
Phoenix who we spent a few June afternoons with
Frequently respond to heat distress calls, says Captain Chris Marini.
On those days where you mix it in with not drinking, not having proper
nutrition, and then also, you know, possibly alcohol or drugs.
It's really easy where people just become, you know, altered, and
now they can't take care of themselves and they just start overheating
real fast.
In recent years, the homeless have accounted for about half of the
total deaths associated with heat in Maricopa County.
2020 was a screaming alarm for officials here. One of the state's
driest and hottest summers on record was also its deadliest over
520 deaths linked to heat.
Twice the number of fatalities reported nationally from all other
natural disasters combined. How we doing this morning
feeling? Okay, I see you got some shade. Their response, The city
of Phoenix created a new office, appointing health and climate scientist
David Honduras. As a sort of heat czar. It's the first publicly funded
position of its kind in the country.
The heat illness. Statistics would suggest that in general, we are
not meeting the need for heat relief in our community. We have seen
increasing numbers of heat. Associated deaths 400% increase since
2014 soon after taking the job, Honduras a realized that he can't
solve heat deaths without addressing homelessness. Our best estimate
is that individuals experiencing homelessness in America but county
are at about 200 times higher risk.
Of suffering Heat associated illness or death than folks who have
regular stable housing while having outreach workers hand out water
and sunscreen can't hurt.
Honduras says those and even the cooling centers are only band AIDS.
We need to be thinking about housing affordability. We need to be
thinking about drug and alcohol, rehabilitation and recovery. We
need to be thinking about just simply more shelters for folks in
the city.
Climate change models say Phoenix should expect more super hot days.
Projections suggest that our hottest days are days that are in the
115 220 degree range right now.
Could become 4567 degrees Fahrenheit hotter over the next several
decades. That's of course, a great concern because those hottest
days are absolutely the most dangerous. Phoenix They're also piloting
new technologies to try to lower the temperatures in these neighborhoods.
They've begun spraying a reflective coating on certain city streets.
Early data shows that the temperature on this surface is considerably
lower than on traditional asphalt. We could actually wind up with
the Phoenix of the future. That's cooler.
Than the one we have today, even if global warming continues, so
that gives us motivation to invest in an experiment with technologies
like cool Pavement Street Transportation Department is applying.
We have more miles of cool pavement here.
Than any other city in North America.
But the low tech tactic that may make the biggest impact is planting
more trees. Leafy trees not only provide shade the water they take
in, for example, through the city's flood irrigation system is given
back as moisture and cooling to the air.
A process called Eva Po transpiration trees were planting here. Most
of them are native to the Sonoran Desert. Borman Elementary School
in West Phoenix. Joaquin Murrieta, culturally colleges.
Is helping out at a tree planting event run by a group of local NGOs.
Imagine when he rains in Phoenix water. Where does it go? Lot of
water that flows from the streets so we can guide that water to rain
gardens along the streets with basis that will hold that water with
native plans with native trees.
So eventually we can transform over city to be a green city.
Esposito of the Phoenix based group Trees matter says planting canopy
in underserved communities and schools should be a priority. We're
trying to address where we plant trees from an equity standpoint.
And so we're looking at. Where do we plant trees where trees are
not currently invested in as much you don't have to look far to see
that socio, economically disadvantaged neighborhoods have less shade
compared to more affluent areas.
Phoenix's City Council recently allocated $6 million of leftover
covid rescue money to fund tree planting. David Honduras Heat offices
fighting an uphill battle with urban development.
Phoenix is one of the fastest growing cities in the country. It's
already what experts call a heat island where the lack of shade combined
with heat absorbing asphalt can make it 10 degrees warmer than surrounding
areas. They're trying to build a heat resistant metropolis.
In the middle of Sonoran Desert is that even realistic when we look
at what climate models suggest we can do with our built environment
when we think about technologies that are becoming available when
we're thinking about
Low hanging fruit in terms of how we might be able to just nudge
behavior is a little bit to be safer in our heat. We think there's
a lot of opportunity ahead for how this can be a thriving sustainable
city decades and centuries into the future.
But that kind of transformation will take decades of investment and
political will.
For now, the need for cooling centers has grown so much that faith
based organizations are needed to help meet demand. The Justice Center
depends on donations. What is the cooling Center mean for your daily
life?
During the summer. I wouldn't I wouldn't have survived without it
here. Charity means not only feeding the poor and giving them water
to drink but providing air conditioned refuge from the relentless
summer heat.