PHOENIX — Anne Morollo figured three years ago she could escape the harsh summers by moving from Florida to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The stinging air and orange skies of her first wildfire shattered that illusion of hers.
She returned to the South five months ago, and these days she’s just staying home, avoiding the front seat of a burning Volvo and sinking into air-conditioned isolation. Morolo, 57, who now lives in Savannah, Georgia, said:
Call it surrender to summer.
It’s been the hottest summer ever for some Texas cities as much of the country sweats through a series of record heatwaves, and parts of Oklahoma haven’t been this hot since the Dust Bowl. In the normally temperate Pacific Northwest locations, where temperatures are in the triple digits — people are beginning to remake their lives just to survive the miserable ultramarathons that now mark the heat of the American summer.
Some people become nocturnal and go jogging or walking their dogs before the sun rises or long after sunset. Some people keep their curtains closed all day, while others head out into the sultry world with a frozen bottle of water. Because native lilies die in the sun, New Jersey florists string silk flowers into outdoor arrangements. We are reducing our necessities.
This summer feels especially unbearable, as every escape from the heat presents a problem.
Want a road trip to the mountains? Gasoline average prices may be coming down, but they’re still about $4.30 a gallon, $1 more than last summer. Want to fly to a cooler place? With record heat in Europe and nothing more in Asia, air travel is a nightmare of flight cancellations and delays.
Officials across the country are scrambling to keep people safe. On an Orange County beach, a California Junior Lifeguard tells him he’s taking mandatory breaks every hour and doing hydration and sunscreen checks. Sacramento has turned a former science museum into a “respite center” for homeless people. New York City has kept public pools open longer during the recent heat wave, and community gardens have added extra watering shifts to volunteer agendas.
Daniel Hyde, 24, a finance associate in New York, scrapped plans to play basketball in a park after record temperatures hit the Northeast last week and instead went to a fan-cooled basement at a community center. I got
“The effect of the sun’s rays on the outside of you is very dangerous,” he said. “It’s better here. They have bottled water.”
This summer, from Boston to Texas to Alaska, heatwaves are breaking records almost every week. Seattle and Portland, Oregon — not exactly hot spots — both set new daily temperature records on Tuesday, with 102 in Portland and 94 in Seattle. Portland was predicted to be in the top 100 again on Thursday.
Newark last week saw five consecutive days of temperatures above 100 degrees for the first time on record as heat peaked in the eastern United States on Sunday.Cities from Joplin, Missouri to Reading, Pennsylvania to Manchester, New Hampshire set records. I was.
and this month maybe hottest july ever — Following the hottest months of May and June — Austin, Texas has recorded 47 triple-digit days so far this year.
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“I stay home after 10,” said Paolo Pinto, 70, who lives in Austin. “I have curtains, shades, and a fan.
The unrelenting Texas heat literally moves the ground under your feet. Hundreds of broken water mains In a city like Fort Worth. The state’s power grid, which plunged millions into freezing darkness after the winter storms of 2021, is straining to avoid rolling blackouts as demand surges.
And it’s not just heat. Smoke from wildfires stains the western sky. In California, more than 18,000 acres near Yosemite National Park have been ravaged by oak wildfires over the past week, while northern Arizona has burned to the ground after a one-to-two wildfire followed by devastating flooding. The Ponderosa Forest has been torn apart.
So do thirsty bobcats in the drought-stricken Southwest. venture Leave the desert and enter people’s backyards to find water.
Summer rains bring record floods, like those that eroded roads in Yellowstone National Park and a storm that brought two months’ worth of rain to St. Louis in just six hours . A storm in Missouri this week turned a highway into a canal, killing at least one person.
Not to mention pools have closed in many cities due to lack of lifeguards, and with the resurgence of the Covid-19 threat, hanging out at malls and movie theaters has become an increasingly risky proposition, with choco tacos. I couldn’t even heal my predicament with
Those most vulnerable are often the elderly, homeless and low-income people who cannot afford to pay their electricity bills to cool themselves, or who live in apartments whose landlords have not properly repaired air conditioning. I am a person. They have no safe place this summer.
In San Antonio, a two-week heatwave—the latest in a series of heatwaves that continued into June—cracked low-income residents in a treeless area of the city center, leaving several people dead after their air conditioners broke. residents fled from their sweltering apartments to motels. Other residents covered their windows with curtains or wrapped their necks in cold towels.
“I can’t sleep and it’s too hot to be outside,” said Hernan Macias, 52, of San Antonio. “I feel like I’ve had the worst summer ever, the hottest summer ever.”
Still, climate scientists warn that 10 years from now, scorching summers like this one may look relatively mild.
Heat waves in the United States have become hotter, longer and more frequent in recent decades, jumping from two per year in the 1960s to six in the 2010s. analysis From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The length of the annual heat wave season has more than tripled from 22 days to 68 days during the same period. Many areas are ill-equipped to deal with excessive heat, like the Pacific Northwest, where last summer’s heat wave killed hundreds of people and again this week temperatures soared into his triple digits. extreme phenomena are prevalent in Homeowners in the area, who once needed only fans to stay cool, are rushing to install Central Air.
Christina Dahl, the Union’s chief climate scientist, said it’s a new normal because until we curb the carbon “emissions from burning fossil fuels, it usually gets worse, but we shouldn’t get used to it.” Concerned scientists who are advocacy groups.
Phoenix, the hottest metropolis in the United States, closes popular trails from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on dangerously hot days. The fire department will send backup firefighters to rescue the crew in case they overheat during the high heat of the day when temperatures can easily reach 115 degrees.
Beyond the Valley of the Sun – even its name sounds oppressive on 110-degree days – in the dark, many hikers strap on their headlamps and form a twinkling constellation on the side of Phoenix’s Piestewa Peak. .
Indeed, despite its misery and ominous foreboding, this snappy summer still has the power to dazzle and surprise.
Maverick has taken off again in theaters, and Bennifer has rekindled romance. And Joni Mitchell, seven years after he suffered a brain aneurysm, took the stage at the Newport Folk Festival and breathed these words into the breeze.
Jack Healy Reported by Phoenix, Edgar Sandoval Originally from San Antonio.The report was contributed by Mike Baker in Seattle, Lauren Hurd Western New York, New Jersey, Sean Hubler Sacramento and David Montgomery in Austin, Texas. Ann Bernard also contributed.