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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – Volunteers and county staff set up cots and stack hundreds of water bottles in an air-conditioned cooling center in a vacant building in Portland, Ore., The one of the many places being settled as the Northwest sees another expanse of scorching temperatures.
Scorching weather also hit other parts of the country this week. The weather service said heat advisories and warnings would be in effect from the Midwest to the Northeast and Mid Atlantic until at least Friday.
In Portland, temperatures approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius) on Wednesday and mercury could soar beyond the century on Thursday and Friday. Authorities trying to rescue vulnerable people are aware of a record heat wave in early summer that killed hundreds in the Pacific Northwest.
High temperatures in Portland, which is part of a generally temperate region, would break all-time records this week if the heat wave in late June had not already done so. Seattle will be cooler than Portland, with temperatures in the mid-90s, but it still has a record-breaking chance, and a lot of people there, like Oregon, don’t have air conditioning.
People started walking into a 24-hour cooling center in north Portland before it opened on Wednesday.
The first people were homeless, a population vulnerable to the oppressive heat. Among them was December Snedecor, who slept two nights in the same center in June when temperatures reached 116 F (47 C).
She said she planned to sleep there again this week as the heat in her tent was unbearable.
“I doused myself with water a lot. It was in adolescence, a hundred-year-old heat. It made me dizzy. It wasn’t good, ”Snedecor said of the June heat. “I just have to stay cool. I do not want to die.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown declared a state of emergency and activated an emergency operations center, citing the potential for power and transportation disruptions. In addition to opening cooling centers, city and county governments are extending the opening hours of public libraries and removing bus fees for those heading to cooling centers. A 24-hour statewide helpline will direct callers to the nearest cooling shelter and offer safety advice.
Emergency officials have sent alerts to phones, said Dan Douthit, spokesperson for the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management.
Back-to-back heat waves, coupled with an unusually hot and dry summer overall, hit an area where summer highs typically drift into the 1970s or 1980s. Intense heat waves and historic drought in the American West reflect climate change making weather conditions more extreme.
The June heat in Oregon, Washington State and British Columbia killed hundreds and sounded the alarm bells about what lies ahead in a warming world. This was virtually impossible without man-made climate change, according to detailed scientific analysis..
Even the youngest residents battled the heat in June and dreaded the sweltering temperatures this week.
Katherine Morgan, 27, has no air conditioning in her third-floor apartment and can’t afford a window with the money she earns working in a bookstore and as a hostess in a brewery.
She will have to walk to work on Thursday, a day when temperatures could soar again.
“All of my friends and I knew climate change was real, but it’s getting really scary because it was getting progressively hot – and it was suddenly really hot, really fast,” Morgan said.
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