Exclusive: With heatwaves predicted to worsen dramatically over the next 30 years, many big US cities are failing to fully plan to protect those most vulnerable to extreme heat

When heatwaves hammered US cities this summer, one of the hottest in recorded history, some city governments had plans in place to protect their most at-risk residents.

Philadelphia’s plan sent homeless outreach teams to distribute water and bring people to cooling centers. Austin’s plan suspended electricity shutoffs for low-income or fixed-income customers. Chicago’s plan dispatched building inspectors to monitor shelters and other buildings without air conditioning.

But many other major US cities, including Dallas and Jacksonville, did not have detailed plans. When asked by the Guardian to provide their extreme heat response plans, 24 of the 30 largest US cities (or their counties) provided a written response plan, but only 10 had policies to target vulnerable populations.

Experts argue that it is vital to have detailed plans to protect populations such as the elderly, young children, the homeless and low-income people.

We are not going to simply be able to air-condition ourselves out of this problem. Rachel Cleetus

“The reality is that [extreme heat] is a risk that people are seriously underestimating,” said Rachel Cleetus, a policy director for the climate and energy program Union at the Concerned Scientists and co-author of its report Killer Heat in the United States. It projects that by mid-century, more than 90 million Americans will be exposed to 30 or more days with a heat index above 105 F (40.5C ) each year, compared with just 900,000 now.

Extreme heat “may not grab the headlines the way a hurricane might, but it’s absolutely killing people right now and making people sick right now”, Cleetus said, “We are going to have these worsening heatwaves, and they are going to become really, really intense.”

A pressing emergency

Already, heat kills more people than any other weather-related hazards. In cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas and New York, heat-related deaths have frequently exceeded one hundred in recent summers. With unmitigated climate change, scientists predict the number of deaths from individual heatwaves could rise into the thousands.

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To prevent these catastrophic deaths when a heatwave strikes, cities need “a comprehensive set of response options that can quickly be implemented”, Cleetus said. These responses, according to Cleetus, should identify vulnerable populations, open easily accessible cooling centers, coordinate with schools, and stop utility shut-offs, among other protocols.

These measures cannot be found in the written plans of cities including Dallas, Fort Worth, Detroit, San Diego and Charlotte, which communicate heat alerts and post cooling center locations, but do not have heat response plans that trigger actions by city officials during a heatwave.

guardian city extreme heat table Guardian graphic | Source: Guardian investigation

Methodology: This spreadsheet is populated with findings from the written extreme heat emergency response plans provided for each of the 30 largest U.S. cities. Some cities provided specific extreme heat response plans, while others provided all-hazard mitigation plans that included heat response efforts. Some of the plans were housed at the county level, in which case we referenced the city’s corresponding county. In some cases, officials told us that non-profit organizations such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army provided emergency response services; this spreadsheet only refers to government actions as stipulated by the plans. (Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville, Oklahoma City, and San Francisco either do not have formal written heat plans or did not make them available to the Guardian).

Experts say these plans leave those most likely to die from heatwaves in potential jeopardy. “Having these blanket interventions is OK, but if you are not really hitting the folks who are most vulnerable, then you are really not accomplishing the main goal,” said Dr Jalonne White-Newsome, a public health expert who studies extreme heat response plans. “If nobody knows that the city opens a cooling center, then it will not be impactful and you are going to continue to see heat-related mortality and morbidity.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A highway sign and a retail sign detail extreme temperatures in Fort Worth, Texas, in August 2011. Photograph: Mike Stone/Reuters

Dallas historically averaged eight days per summer with a heat index of 105F (40.5C ). By mid-century, Dallas can expect 62 days above that 105F threshold, researchers at the Union of Concerned Scientists found. In the summer of 2011 in Dallas, heat killed an estimated 112 citizens, and heat-related deaths are projected to increase by 150% by mid-century.

“This is a pressing emergency,” said Brian Stone, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of a 2017 study on urban heat in Dallas. And yet, Dallas’s extreme heat response documents consist only of a list of local libraries and community centers to cool off – open during their normal business hours, which excludes holidays and most Sundays.

“Government itself has been largely absent from heat management in Dallas,” Stone said. When repeatedly asked by the Guardian to comment on their heat response planning, and for a response to criticisms of its scope, the Dallas office of emergency management declined.

Plans like these that rely on cooling centers, Cleetus said, won’t be effective unless they target outreach to vulnerable populations. “We are not going to simply be able to air condition ourselves out of this problem,” she said, “We really have to think about other, more holistic strategies.”

Heat-specific planning

More comprehensive strategies, implemented by cities such as Austin and Chicago, include street outreach teams for homeless people, bans on utility shut-offs during heat waves, free transportation to cooling centers, and guidelines to cancel outdoor events. Many cities are also investing in long-term infrastructure planning to keep urban areas cool, such as creating more green space and using more reflective roofing materials. Studies show this urban heat island effect is strongest in minority neighborhoods, the result of decades of racist policies and lending practices.

In many cities, there do not appear to be specific protocols for extreme heat. In Jacksonville, for example, which has written emergency plans for civil unrest, floods, terrorism, wildfires, severe weather and infectious diseases, the comprehensive emergency plan has no specific heat protocols.

Asked about this, Jacksonville’s emergency preparedness director, Steven Woodward, said, “All-hazards planning is based on the premise that consequences of disasters result in the same response requirements regardless of the hazard.” Jacksonville also provides misting fans and cooling buses for “outdoor special events”, such as the Jacksonville Jazz Fest, the city’s public information officer said.

It’s not just southern cities such Dallas and Jacksonville that are at risk of hundreds of heat deaths per year. In fact, one study projects that cities such as Seattle could see deaths of more than 700 during a severe heatwave. “People’s bodies and infrastructure are just not actually built for this kind of heat,” Cleetus said.

In Columbus, Ohio, for example, the number of days with a heat index above 100F will spike from about one day a year historically to 24 by mid-century at the current rate of climate heating, according to data from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

This increase is forcing Columbus, which is currently drafting a comprehensive climate adaptation plan, to recognize climate change as a public health threat. “For many people in city government this might be the first time they’ve professionally been exposed to climate change,” said Jason Cervenec, a researcher at the Ohio State University who co-authored a report on proposed climate adaptation measures for the city.

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Historically, the city has opened its parks and recreation facilities as cooling centers on hot days, which “has happened with increasing frequency over the past few years”, said Alana Shockey, assistant director for sustainability for the City of Columbus. “The city is now trying to build out our Park and Rec facilities to be true resilience hubs,” Shockey said.

Having these plans, of course, means little for overheating residents if the plans are ignored by local officials, as some reports indicate is a common practice. In San Francisco, for example, a local NBC investigation found that in 2017, despite having ample warning, city officials ignored the heat plan they had drafted, refusing to even open cooling centers as 911 call centers were overloaded. Similarly, as Eric Klinenberg describes in his book Heat Wave, Chicago failed to implement its own heat emergency plan before the 1995 heatwave that killed 739 people.

By failing to write or implement these emergency response heat plans, cities are failing to stop preventable deaths, said White-Newsome, the public health expert: “One life lost to heat is unacceptable.”

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