What’s different this year is that we’re one of the first cities to offer overnight cooling centers. Last year, most of our cooling centers closed at 5 or 6 p.m., but that didn’t mean the heat was turned off. We were seeing a high number of 911 calls after hours. If you’re on the concrete, living in the urban heat island effect, you’re roasting in that, whether it’s 90, 100 or 115 degrees. We need to have the same resources available. So, we went back to the leadership and said we need to have extended hours.
A lot of it is trial and error, which can be challenging. I can look at the data and say, “Okay, I see there are a lot of 911 calls happening here, I’m going to do some outreach work.” And then I go there, and there’s actually not a lot of need. It turns out the calls were because it was close to a hospital. You have to be able to change course in an instant. I’ll be honest, we used to have cooling centers that were too far away for people to get to. So we brought the cooling bus to them.
I think it’s important to create cool spaces and shade trees to make Phoenix more livable and sustainable. That’s what our office’s mitigation team works on: long-term strategies for shade and tree planting. But what I have to focus on is how do I keep someone safe? Planting more trees is wonderful, but that’s not going to save you today. And that’s where I come in.
There are people who cry and thank me because they see me there every day. I’m not going to give them up. Sometimes, for these people, it is a life or death situation. It may sound a little dramatic, but a bottle of water in someone’s hand saves lives. And then there were people that I put into a vehicle with our Office of Homeless Solutions and now they’re going to temporary housing. If we could make housing more affordable, then they wouldn’t need me.
My favorite part of the day is going down to the warehouse where we keep the heating kits. I put on some music, go into an area, and start making kits. We put out hats, sunscreen, cooling towels, and SPF liquid lip balm, because tube lip balm will melt. Our wide-brimmed hats are very popular. People love Hydro Flasks. We provide shoes to people when they need them, because we see a lot of people in socks or barefoot. I know those kits will go out the door and immediately serve someone who needs them. I love doing that.
—Told to Camille Bromley
Image source: Getty Images