Mesa super-charges effort to cut heat deaths

Jun. 2—The usually upbeat Mesa Mayor John Giles was troubled during a study session back in March, when the weather was still pleasant.

He explained that the day prior, he had attended a presentation on heat-related deaths in 2023 by the Maricopa Association of Governments, and the results shocked him.

The county's total was 645 dead, a 52% increase over the prior year.

Of that total, 51 occurred in Mesa — roughly twice the number of homicides the city recorded that year.

"That's staggering to me," Giles said.

Arizona is facing a future where heat deaths are rising to the scale of drug overdoses as a public health threat.

To put Maricopa County's heat deaths in perspective, last year's tally was more than half the county's 1,189 fatal opioid overdoses in 2022.

Extreme heat threatens a broad swath of residents.

While there's a nexus between overheating and illegal drug use — some drugs cause hyperthermia, or high body temperature — there was no substance involved in 49% of heat deaths in Mesa over the past four years.

And 61% percent of the people who died had stable housing. Many people who died indoors had malfunctioning air conditioners, according to a staff presentation.

In response to the recent spike in heat deaths, the City of Mesa and non-government partners are trying to elevate their responses this summer.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting another unusually hot summer for Arizona, with the latest forecast predicting a 60% to 80% chance of above average temperatures in June, July and August.

"Make this a top agenda item," Giles told city administrators at a May study session. "If there's any lack of resources, please let us know."

The human toll of heat is especially shocking because most of last year's deaths were compressed in just one month — July.

"It's kind of like a scheduled train wreck," Giles said. "We need to go knock on doors in that trailer park because we can just predict that something bad's gonna happen there" based on historical data.

The remarks from the mayor and other council members after the county's report on heat deaths has galvanized city staff to super-charge their already robust plans to reduce heat-related illness.

There was a sense of urgency during a follow-up study session in late May, as Mesa's chief data officer, emergency manager and deputy community services director laid out the city's evolving response to heat this summer.

"All hands on deck is definitely where we are," said Lindsey Balinkie, deputy director of Community Services. "Anyone listening to this presentation, all of us really need to be aware of people in need that might need to connect to these services such as transportation to cooling centers, utility assistance and emergency air conditioning repair."

On May 1, the city convened 87 faith leaders as part of the Together in Service initiative and presented information on heat death and asked for help.

Using Mesa-specific data culled from county data on heat-related deaths, city officials are pinpointing where in Mesa to focus resources to prevent heat deaths.

A map presented to city council recently showed clear hotspots for indoor and outdoor heat-related deaths, respectively.

Employees and volunteers have started going door-to-door in high-risk areas to inform people of help available for heat-related issues.

New this year, Mesa is launching an air-conditioning loan program to deploy portable AC units to homes.

"What we're doing right now is buying a handful of (portable ACs) and getting to know them and install them and see which ones are the better ones to be using," Balinkie told the council.

Mesa will also have a team of social service "navigators" dedicated to heat-related issues this summer. The teams will have vehicles to transport people to cooling centers.

Balinkie said Mesa also received funding from the Arizona Department of Housing to keep an extra 28 rooms of emergency shelter at the Windemere Hotel open through the summer, on top of the 85 it uses regularly as part of its Off the Streets program.

Data is a center-piece of updated heat response this summer.

Robert Campa, emergency manager for Mesa Fire and Medical, said that beginning in May, medics began asking patients questions about whether their illness is heat-related and what led to the issue.

It will help emergency managers get a sense of how the heat crises is unfolding in the city over the summer.

"With this data, now we're tracking in real time," Campa said. "We're getting daily reports and referrals to our heat relay support team."