It was enough to walk the short distance from the car to be able to agree. It wasn’t just hot, it was boiling hot. The sun burned against the skin, or was it perhaps the heat from the asphalt that made the arms and legs sting a little? The air was dry and hot, not unlike how it feels to breathe when you’ve just sat in a sauna. There was not a single person inside the deli and the shelves in the water cooler were half empty. A few hours later, it was confirmed that 48 degrees had been measured in Phoenix. Admittedly, it wasn’t a new all-time high for what’s being called America’s hottest major city, but it was a daily record enough to make headlines. Setting the clock to rest the dog Four days in the center of what the American National Weather Service called an “extremely dangerous heat wave” has been more than enough to make people wonder how it is possible that the residents are coping. In the short term with not having had a break from the heat for several weeks. In the longer term, with the uncertainty surrounding how their lives may change, perhaps faster than for others. The question of whether it will be possible to live in the city in the future or not has been debated for a long time. Several of those I have met point out that there is a certain habit of heat in this part of the country, the city’s subtropical desert climate means that high temperatures are not unusual. – We usually say that Phoenix only has two seasons, a very long summer and a very short winter, explained a young man who settled down under a tree in the city center. But the heat wave of recent weeks has nevertheless provoked reactions. Of course, there are those who call it “climate hysteria” – others say that July has been something out of the ordinary and that it is starting to feel unpleasant. The latter group included an elderly couple whom I met outside a grocery store. They curiously asked about the temperature in Sweden, laughed and said that it sounded pleasant to live there. They themselves have had to set the clock to 03 every night to be able to go out with the dog. That’s when it’s coolest – or at least most bearable, just below 40 degrees. – Otherwise, there is only one thing that applies: drink lots of water, stay indoors as much as possible. And then patiently wait for November, the woman explained. Warns of deadly heat As we stood talking, a fire engine stopped on the other side of the road. An ambulance with its blue lights on also appeared and soon a person who sought shelter from the heat in a ditch had been taken to hospital. A couple of well-filled plastic bags were left in the grass. There is no mistaking that it is the city’s homeless and drug addicts who are the most vulnerable. It wasn’t the only one I saw that suffered badly from the heat. An hour or so later, at a bus stop in another part of town, a middle-aged man sat on a bald pavement, close to collapsing under his large sun hat. There, too, both the fire brigade and ambulance soon braked to the side of the road. A stretcher was rolled out and in a couple of minutes they were gone. “Phoenix emergency services battle extreme heat, but no flames,” the New York Times reported later this weekend about the pressure both health care workers and firefighters are working under right now. Local authorities have not confirmed whether the heat of the past few days has resulted in new deaths, beyond the 12 already confirmed for the first week of July. On the other hand, the warnings about how dangerous the heat is to health and, in the worst case, deadly, have been repeated time and time again. The hellish days continue What has been confirmed, however, are the records that have been set, so many in number that it has been difficult to keep up. 35 new daily records were reported by the National Weather Service on Sunday alone in various locations, such as in California’s Death Valley and Las Vegas, Nevada. In the state of Arizona, the largest power company also stated that electricity consumption had surged to a new record level. On Tuesday, Phoenix enters its 19th day with a forecast exceeding 43.3 degrees. That too will then be a new record and maybe it will be extended by more days than that. Because it doesn’t look like residents are getting a break from the heat just yet. Instead, the forecasts suggest that the heat will continue, both during the hellish days and the sweaty dog walks at night. And there is still a long way to go until November.
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