On days when temperatures and humidity in New York reach dangerous enough levels to trigger a heat advisory – as they did on Thursday – the city designates more than 500 locations as official. cooling centerwhere people can come for free to stay cool and safe.
But some of the neighborhoods most in need of the center – with the hottest temperatures, the fewest green spaces and most homes without air conditioning – have at least per capita, the city executive’s office. said in a research Thursday release.
The hardest hit areas are in central Brooklyn, central Queens and parts of the Bronx. The most overlooked is Brooklyn’s East Flatbush area, where only two cooling centers opened during last month’s heatwave to 162,400 residents.
That is despite having the highest level of the city heat vulnerability ratings, a risk measure that considers social and environmental factors including poverty, park accessibility, and temperature. Street surface temperatures can vary by tens of degrees depending on tree canopy, infrastructure, and the location of the neighborhood.
The curator of calculations, Brad Lander, has called for the city to immediately open more cooling centers in underserved areas like East Flatbush – by extending office hours at many libraries, for example. and more senior centers – and to make it easier for them to find and have access to, all residents.
“As climate change makes deadly heatwaves increasingly common, New York City must shield its residents from dangerous health effects,” he said in a statement.
As the planet heats up due to the effects of burning fossil fuels, cities like New York are grappling with increasing heat risks and heat inequality. About 370 New Yorkers die from the heat each year; The New York City Commission on Climate Change predicts that by 2080, that number could be 3,300. And because of the history of racism in zoning and planning and other social factors, the risk is much greater for black and lower-income New Yorkers.
The number of centers per capita varies widely even among hot, low-income areas; Brownsville, in Brooklyn, has 17.3 centers per 100,000 residents, compared with 1.2 in Elmhurst and Corona in Queens.
One of the study’s most striking findings: It is difficult to find cooling centers at night, even though the inability to cool at night is one of the major factors in heat illness and death. death.
Of the 542 malls on the city’s map during the July 19-25 heatwave, only half were open on Saturday and 83% closed on Sunday. Research shows that only 11% are open in the evening, with many stores closing even during peak heat hours during the day.
And nearly half are senior centers, which means young people can’t reach them alongside older people. Among high-end cooling centers, 22 percent are wheelchair-free and less than half of the working hours are extended.
