{"id":390974,"date":"2026-07-08T19:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/390974\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:17:12","slug":"is-san-francisco-prepared-for-extreme-heat-this-sf-supervisor-wants-to-find-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/390974\/","title":{"rendered":"Is San Francisco Prepared for Extreme Heat? This SF Supervisor Wants to Find Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

With more extreme heat waves on the horizon, San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman wants to make sure the city can beat the heat. \n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

People sunbathe at Ocean Beach in San Francisco during a heat wave on June 10, 2026. Experts warn that the city is not equipped to handle extreme heat, as its residents are accustomed to cooler temperatures.
\n\u00a0(T\u00e2m V\u0169\/KQED)<\/p>\n

In March, San Francisco hit a record-breaking<\/a> 90 degrees Fahrenheit \u2014 the highest temperature recorded in the month of March in the past 152 years, according to Mandelman\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Rishee Jain, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, said that \u201cjust like wildfires have become a California annual occurrence, I think this is going to be an annual occurrence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman speaks at a press event in front of San Francisco City Hall on Oct. 29, 2025. (Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Mandelman said that San Francisco residents are extra vulnerable given their lack of exposure to extreme heat. \u201cSan Francisco has less air conditioning than any major city in the country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He also cited the city Department of Public Health, which estimates that \u201cthe risk of hospitalization and death here starts climbing at 85 degrees, an unremarkable temperature by California standards \u2014 because our bodies and our buildings are unprepared for that kind of heat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor and senior fellow at Stanford University, said that humans can adapt to a variety of climates, and what\u2019s safe for some humans can be disastrous for others. \u201cIt\u2019s really relative to what we\u2019re accustomed to and what we\u2019re prepared for,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Even within San Francisco, the risk is not evenly distributed, Mandelman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen heat arrives in San Francisco, it hits hardest in neighborhoods like SoMa, Bayview-Hunters Point, and Chinatown \u2014 urban heat islands that run significantly hotter than surrounding areas and whose residents are the least likely to have access to cooling,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, Diffenbaugh said, \u201cresilience to severe heat really comes down to preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jain said that in order to prepare for extreme heat, San Francisco may need to revisit its infrastructure. \u201cMany of our buildings are designed to keep heat in because it\u2019s notoriously cold here,\u201d he said. He explained that because they\u2019re designed to keep the heat in, buildings can stay hot inside even after the heat breaks outside.<\/p>\n

He said another solution could involve making it easier to get cool air back into buildings. \u201cMost people in San Francisco still get to use Karl as their primary source of cooling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a big part of this is also thinking about how we can harness that cooling power even on days that it does get hot,\u201d Jain continued.<\/p>\n

\"\"People flock to Baker Beach near the Golden Gate Bridge as heat advisory issued in San Francisco, California, on March 16, 2026. (Tayfun Coskun\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Diffenbaugh also offered solutions such as installing air conditioning, having warning systems, designating cooling centers for heat waves, and getting vulnerable people access to those centers when the heat waves come.<\/p>\n

Mandelman\u2019s office said that although the hearing isn\u2019t officially scheduled yet, he\u2019s aiming for July 23.<\/p>\n

At a Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, Mandelman said that the hearing will answer one question: \u201cWhen an extreme heat event strikes again \u2014 because it is a question of when, and not if \u2014 is San Francisco in a better place to respond?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With more extreme heat waves on the horizon, San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman wants to make sure the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-390974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}