Eastern US faces first heat wave of the year
“We have to hold on, otherwise what are we going to live on?” said Ecuadorian worker Manuel as he repaired the facade of a building in New York, amid the heat wave that hit the east coast of the United States this Monday (23) with temperatures close to 40ºC.
“Sometimes we stop because it’s dangerous. Not everyone has the same energy, but yes, we have to hold on,” he told AFP, standing at the foot of a scaffold.
The thermometer exceeded 38°C in the early afternoon in Washington Heights, a neighborhood with a large Latino community. According to the National Weather Service, in Central Park, the lung of Manhattan, the temperature reached 35°C, the highest for this time of year since 1888.
The first major heat wave of the year in the United States began over the weekend and peaked today, affecting about 160 million people in the eastern part of the country, in cities such as Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.
“This extreme heat will not only be uncomfortable and oppressive for New Yorkers. It will be brutal and dangerous if necessary measures are not taken,” warned Mayor Eric Adams, noting that 500 people die each year from heat in the city of 8 million people.
As in other cities, the city has set up air-conditioned “cooling centers,” mainly for the elderly, who are most vulnerable. “With a heat wave, no one is going to want to cook at home, it’s going to be too hot,” said Stephany Cruz, an activities coordinator at a senior center in Washington Heights, which offers lunch for a voluntary contribution of $1.50.
During this period, the center is open from 7 am to 7 pm, with capacity to receive up to 150 people per day, the majority of whom are women.
One of the regulars is Dominican Marcia Díaz, 65, who lives with her daughter and three grandchildren and has just one air conditioning unit at home.
“We leave the door open to keep the apartment cooler,” said the retiree, who suffers from asthma and high blood pressure. She usually pays $270 a month for electricity outside of the summer.
Several fire hydrants are open in the neighborhood, and some people take the opportunity to wet their faces and necks, like technician Ronald Marcelin, 44, who sweats heavily while fixing an air conditioning unit in a pizzeria. “This is the beginning. This year will probably be harder than last year.”
The intensity and duration of the heat wave make it “extremely dangerous for anyone without cooling or hydration,” the National Weather Service warned, saying extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths.
There is an elongated high-pressure front “parked over the eastern half of the country” that “will continue to generate an extremely dangerous heat wave this week. The risk of extreme heat will extend from the Midwest to the mid-Atlantic today,” the NWS warns. “This level of heat risk is known to be infrequent (…) with little to no relief overnight,” it adds.
The heat wave will be the main focus of the Democratic Party's primary election for mayor of New York on Tuesday. Two candidates appear as favorites: centrist Andrew Cuomo and emerging leftist star Zohran Mamdami.
“Vote on Election Day, even if it’s 100 degrees [Fahrenheit],” said Cuomo, a former New York state governor.
According to scientists, more frequent heat waves are a clear sign of global warming, and predictions are that they will increase in frequency, duration and intensity.
The year 2024 was the hottest on record and the first to exceed the 1.5°C warming limit set by the Paris climate agreement, according to the World Meteorological Organization, a UN agency.
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