As Heat Indexes Hit Scorching, a Sweaty Nation Takes Precautions

“The fan is useless,” Reyes complained in Spanish, pacing inside the graffiti-tagged warehouse of a store, where old AC units were piled outside. On a day like Saturday, as New York City and much of the country struggled to ride out a heat wave, Reyes saw his patience melt. “One cannot breathe properly without an AC,” he said.

New York roasted Saturday as the heat approached 100 degrees, and thanks to air thickened by humidity, it felt even hotter. For some, the heat brought only discomfort. Yet officials feared far more perilous consequences. Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency lasting through the weekend, saying in a news conference Friday, “We have not seen temperatures like this in at least seven years.”

Hundreds of cooling centers were opened to protect those most vulnerable to the heat, like older people and the homeless. But lawyers and activists complained that inmates in the city’s jails stifled in units without air conditioning and, in many cases, while still having to wear uniforms with long sleeves and pants. There were also worries about an overuse of electricity jeopardizing the city’s power system, threatening a blackout.

Still, New York pulsed with life. The heat did little to stop some New Yorkers from venturing into the streets, however sweaty they might be. They filled museums, formed lines around the block for community pools and went to work.

“The bills have to be paid,” said Ron Mason, 51, a parks worker in a fairly empty Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, wearing long pants, long sleeves and work gloves. “So, regardless of if it’s burning hot or freezing cold, I’ve got to be out here.”

Extreme heat blanketed much of the continent, stretching as far as the Great Lakes and the Texas panhandle. Across that swath of the country, the authorities mobilized in the same ways as they did in New York. In Washington, homeless people were ushered into shelters. In Boston, officials there also declared a heat emergency and opened cooling centers. In South Dakota, local officials had to shut down a busy interstate after the pavement buckled under the heat.

Already, the heat has led to several deaths across the country.

A former player for the New York Giants died in Arkansas on Thursday from a heat stroke; the player, Mitch Petrus, 32, had been working outside his family’s shop in his hometown outside Little Rock. And an air conditioner technician was found in an attic where he had been working in a suburb of Phoenix, and authorities there said his death was likely caused by the heat.

Meteorologists have predicted a miserable weekend, as a dreadful mix of soaring temperatures and high humidity will create heat indexes as high as 115 degrees in some places. Relief is not expected before the weekend is out. Rain is forecast Monday for many of the areas hit by the heat wave, including New York.

The paved environs of New York made it all even worse. High temperatures can feel particularly brutal thanks to the urban heat island effect, in which heat absorbed by asphalt and concrete makes cities significantly hotter than nearby suburbs — particularly at night, when the temperature gap can be as wide as 22 degrees.

The scorching temperatures this weekend interrupt a summer that has, so far, been a season marked by relentless storms. The stifling humidity arrived amid an excessive heat warning for the greater New York City area that began Friday afternoon and was scheduled to last through Sunday evening.

The heat prompted the cancellation of OZY Fest, a hybrid music-lecture-food festival that had been expected to draw tens of thousands to the Great Lawn of Central Park over the weekend; the New York City Triathlon was also canceled. The horse races at Saratoga Race Course were called off as well, the first time they have been canceled over extreme heat in more than a decade.

To help residents and visitors, city officials said they had set up nearly 500 cooling centers for those without air-conditioning to cool off. They also promised to put portable water fountains in places with heavy foot traffic, and issued a Code Red alert to expand outreach efforts to homeless people, including the promise of transportation to cooling areas at shelters. The parks department said it would keep sprinklers in parks running, and extended the hours of city pools and beaches.

De Blasio, who was bombarded by criticism after being absent during a blackout in Manhattan last Saturday, cleared his presidential campaigning schedule so he could stay in the city.

“This is a very, very difficult situation,” de Blasio said in the news conference Friday. “Everyone’s got to take it seriously.”

In anticipation of heightened demand on the power system, the city, in statements, social media posts and news conferences, called on people, especially those in tall office buildings, to keep thermostats and air conditioners set no lower than 78 degrees.

ConEd’s president, Tim Cawley, said Friday that the utility was “very confident” that the power grid would withstand the heat, having brought in 4,000 additional workers and extended employees’ shifts. “It’s everybody in, everybody on,” Cawley said.

By Saturday afternoon, ConEd reported only limited outages in the city.

Some New Yorkers benefited from the heat, even as they toiled in it. Jesus Ayala, a Harlem street vendor selling fruit, bottled water and iced tea, had plenty of business as he walked up and down 125th Street. “When it’s a really hot day like this,” he said, “my sales go up 150%.”

In Queens, the line to get into Astoria Pool, the city’s larger-than-Olympic outdoor public swimming pool, started forming at 9:30 a.m., and before long, a winding row of straw hats, tank tops, beach bags and backpacks stretched down the block.

Among the people closest to the front of the line were Sean and Madelyn Marteo, and their 7-year-old daughter, Madisyn, of Long Island City.

“Me, I’ll try to find a spot in the shade, take a dip in the pool, wet my hat, wet my shirt — cool out,” Marteo, 48, said. “And then, when the sun dries it back, just do the whole routine all over again.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

As Heat Indexes Hit Scorching, a Sweaty Nation Takes Precautions

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