AUSTIN, Texas — As temperatures climb in Austin, city officials are pushing to get more people out of the heat and into cooling shelters, with a renewed focus this summer on heat-safety education and recognizing heat illness before it becomes an emergency.
At Monday’s Public Safety Commission meeting, Austin agencies including EMS, Austin Public Health and Homeless Strategies outlined their plans to keep residents safe during extreme heat, emphasizing education as a key strategy.
Marc Coudert, the city’s climate resilience and adaptation manager in the Climate Action and Resilience office, highlighted the danger of high temperatures, saying, “It is 98 degrees right now, it feels like 105.” Coudert added, “We joke about heat, but it’s super dangerous.”
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Ana Ureta, an emergency management manager with Austin Public Health, said the city has found that “cooling centers are underutilized.”
Ureta said the record heat of 2023 changed how the city prepares for extreme temperatures. She said there were 30 heat-related deaths and 63 days of heat advisories in 2023.
This summer, the city introduced its first Keep Austin Cool Day on May 1. Ureta said the city also expanded outreach efforts, saying, “We also provided cooling kits and information to our community about heat-related illness.”
With temperatures climbing back into triple digits, Ureta said the city is working to ensure employees can identify heat-related illness while on the job. “Providing education to staff in the city of Austin so they understand how to recognize a heat-related illness,” Ureta said. “So while they’re out doing their day-to-day work they can easily recognize that and provide support.”
All of Austin’s parks, libraries and recreation centers are serving as cooling centers this summer.