Protecting people from sweltering city summers
On an August day in 2006, NOAA’s National Weather Service office in Upton, New York, issued a heat advisory. The Office of Emergency Management enacted its heat protocol, sending alerts to the 6,000 organizations in its Advance Warning System network. Roiter’s goal was to reach every person in New York City who cared for vulnerable individuals, including dialysis centers, Citymeals, visiting nurses, and home health care providers.
Even with these efforts, many people suffered in the heat wave. The effects were made worse by a power outage in Queens, which left 174,000 people without electricity for more than a week. By sunset on August 5, 2006, 46 New Yorkers had died of heat stroke. Health officials eventually counted 100 more heat-related deaths.
Heatwaves are riskier for older people, the poor, and the sick
A heat wave is not an “equal opportunity” health threat; it discriminates against older people, people who are poor, people with chronic health conditions, and people taking medications that inhibit body heat regulation. Those with heightened risk of heat stroke include people who suffer from heart disease, asthma, or diabetes, people who don’t have access to air conditioning, and people with mobility issues who have trouble getting up to open the window, and those who don't recognize the need to drink plenty of water.
Where people live in the city also makes a difference. Expanses of black asphalt, concrete, or concentrations of metal infrastructure can trap heat, turning some places into “heat islands” with temperatures as much as 10 degrees hotter than surrounding areas. These features also restrict the amount of heat-dispersing vegetation that can grow. Studies show that in some cities, including New York City, the hottest urban heat islands tend to occur in the poorest neighborhoods, where there is also limited access to air conditioning.
“In New York City, the health risk of heat starts going up in a nonlinear way between 95 and 100 degrees,” explains Tom Matte of the New York Department of Health. “There are a lot of vulnerable people in the city, and our housing is not well adapted to heat.”
In 2007, Matte and his health department colleagues used their own data to persuade NOAA’s National Weather Service to lower the temperature at which they would declare a heat emergency in New York City from 105°F—the temperature at which an emergency would be declared outside of the city—to 95°F in the city, to account for the heat island effect.