what are your community infrastructure plans for extreme heat?

I’ve written about heat emergencies before. There have been several significant heat events here in the United States. Chicago was hit hard back in 1992 and a book was written about those events and the actions taken to try and save lives, see Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago  Even in the relatively cool Pacific Northwest where I live, a heat dome caused many deaths in Seattle and Portland, a few years ago—in June!

Now there is this story from the New York Times, Paris Braces for a Future of Possibly Paralyzing Heat  Paris has had several heat waves just this summer. They are not in a part of the world that has had to deal with extreme temperatures. The public infrastructure, businesses, homes and the people themselves have not had to consider life with extreme heat.

The article is a good one to read. It highlights how infrastructure might fail in extreme heat conditions. Roads, railways, water systems, electrical systems, air conditioning systems for hospitals, all of them are not designed for extreme heat. Even European home design has not considered extreme heat.

While we may have thought about vulnerable populations and moving them to cooling centers during extreme heat events, we need to do more. You need to pull together a planning team from a cross sector of public and private institutions that can first educate them on the threats of extreme heat, have them look at their own vulnerabilities and let them share those with the larger group—so we can all plan accordingly.

Yes, another something to do in this era of climate uncertainty! However, we all know that even a little bit of planning can help tremendously when disasters do strike.