{"id":98016,"date":"2025-08-21T00:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T00:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/98016\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T00:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T00:04:07","slug":"cooling-centers-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/98016\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooling centers open"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the season\u2019s first serious heat wave arrives<\/a>, the city of Los Angeles is extending hours at several senior and recreation centers in the hottest neighborhoods as \u201ccooling centers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two centers in the San Fernando Valley will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday:<\/p>\n

On Thursday and Friday, two more centers will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.:<\/p>\n

L.A. County libraries also announced Wednesday that they will extend hours at many of their locations Thursday through Saturday. <\/p>\n

On Thursday and Friday, all county libraries will be open until at least 7 p.m. (libraries with normal weekday hours from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. will stay open during their normal hours). On Saturday, all locations will be open until at least 7 p.m., except for West Hollywood and Topanga. Find the most up-to-date information on library cooling centers here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In addition, any public place \u2014 including community centers, pools and splash pads \u2014 can be considered a cooling center, said Marta Segura, the city\u2019s chief heat officer.<\/p>\n

Why it matters<\/p>\n

Temperatures are expected<\/a> to be up to 15 degrees above normal for this time of year \u2014 in the high 90s and low 100s across much of Southern California \u2014 through at least the weekend.<\/p>\n

L.A. County defines \u201cextreme heat events\u201d as three or more consecutive days with temperatures above 90 degrees. On such days, there are 1,177 excess emergency room visits in L.A. due to heat illness, according to research from UCLA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cooling centers are a key strategy for many cities to protect public health during heat waves, which are getting hotter and longer as a result of pollution in our atmosphere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why cooling centers?<\/p>\n

When the National Weather Service issues an extreme heat alert or extreme heat watch for our region, as it did Monday<\/a>, the city considers opening what are called \u201caugmented\u201d cooling centers, which is a fancy way of saying they\u2019ll extend hours for some public buildings so people can find refuge there late into the evening, Segura said.<\/p>\n

The spots were identified by the mayor\u2019s public safety office, Segura said, and aim to serve people in low-income, hotter areas, where residents may not have sufficient air conditioning or are concerned about their utility bills.<\/p>\n

The city did not respond to LAist\u2019s request for comment for more details on the specific locations before publication.<\/p>\n

Do cooling centers work?<\/p>\n

L.A. has been slowly gathering information on how effective these cooling stations are, and who exactly they serve.<\/p>\n

Heat resources<\/p>\n

A cooling center is any public place with air conditioning, including libraries and community centers. There are also of course the tried-and-true options: beaches, pools and malls.<\/p>\n

Locate a cooling center near you in L.A. County by calling 211 or using this map<\/a>.Find a cooling center in the city of L.A. by calling 311 or using this map<\/a>.Locate a cooling center in Orange County\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In past years, the augmented cooling centers have not been very well-used<\/a>. Segura said that in her office\u2019s outreach, they\u2019ve learned that many people simply don\u2019t know about them. It\u2019s one reason why her office has developed heat education materials in multiple languages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s always been this question about do cooling centers really work well? Yes, they work when we have outreach, when we have activities and resources, when they’re comfortable, when people want to be there,\u201d Segura said.<\/p>\n

Last year, the city launched a pilot program at five public libraries<\/a> in some of the highest-risk, hottest neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Segura said her office is hoping to start surveying people who use those libraries later this summer.<\/p>\n

But \u201canecdotally,\u201d her office hears that more people are coming to the libraries on Sundays, but they need more data to better understand why \u2014 whether it\u2019s to shelter from heat or for other reasons.<\/p>\n

Funding challenges<\/p>\n

Extending city library hours on Sundays has been something Segura\u2019s office and the City Council has asked for amid worsening heat. But local budget issues<\/a> and federal rollbacks of clean energy incentives have slowed that effort. Many libraries need HVAC system repairs and upgrades, and the city did not provide additional funding to extend hours and staff, Segura said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more capacity,\u201d Segura said. \u201c\u200aWe want to make more libraries, particularly in the high risk areas, open on Sundays. Because heat doesn’t know what day of the week it is. So if we can open them on Sundays and maybe eventually on holidays just like we do our augmented cooling centers, that would be the ideal scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the season\u2019s first serious heat wave arrives, the city of Los Angeles is extending hours at several…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-98016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}