After service ended at the New Philippians Missionary Baptist church in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans on Sunday, the church kept its doors open for people from the neighborhood who needed a break from the heat.
A heat dome of high pressure has been hovering over Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma creating dangerously hot weather for nearly two weeks. On Sunday, heat index values threatened to hit 110F in New Orleans, according to the National Weather Service.
The sermon in church that morning was about letting go. “Psalm 37 starts out with ‘Fret not thyself because of evildoers,’” said Pastor Anthony Jeanmarie III. “It’s just encouraging us as believers that things in life happen to us sometimes that are of ill intent, but our job is not to focus on the person or the problem.”
But Mother Nature herself did not want to let go or let up, with a heat advisory expected to last through Tuesday. Heat index readings reached as high as 120F last week and evening temperatures in the 80s offered little reprieve. “This heat is disrespectful,” said church secretary Thelma Curtis.
The city of New Orleans announced that cooling centers, including the New Philippians Missionary Baptist church, will be open for residents to escape the heat throughout the weekend. Louisiana’s high humidity makes it even harder for the body to cool down during high temperatures, said Alicia Van Doren, who helped write a recent report for the Louisiana department of health about heat-related illnesses in the state.
High humidity levels in the air prevent sweat from evaporating, impeding the body’s mechanism to stay cool. “So when that internal heat production exceeds the heat loss, the body reaches a point that it can no longer sustain its natural thermal regulation. That’s when core temps start to rise and heat stroke occurs,” Van Doren said. Since 1 April, more than 1,200 people have gone to emergency departments in the state for heat-related illnesses, according to Louisiana department of health, or LDH, data.
A report published by the LDH last month found that workers – especially those in agriculture, construction, landscaping, transportation and utilities – are among the most at-risk populations for heat-related illnesses because they have less control over the amount of time they spend under the sun. About 320 workers are taken to the hospital for heat-related illnesses in the state every year, according to the report. Black workers were hospitalized for heat-related illness at double the rate of white workers.
The current heatwave was made five times more likely by climate change, according to an analysis by Climate Central.
“Even just a couple hours a day of air conditioning is really helpful in preventing illness from occurring,” Van Doren said. “As temps continue to rise it’s going to be important moving forward that cooling centers are set up or even just places of business that let people cool down.”
While recent temperatures have reached “disrespectful” levels, they have not broken records, said Louisiana state climatologist Barry Keim. “Most of these temps are bumping up close to what the record high temps would be but this is not a major heat event,” he said. “But to have the temps this high for this long is a little unusual.”
Sea surface temperatures in Lake Pontchartrain, an estuary that abuts New Orleans, reached 90F last week, according to the Pontchartrain Conservancy. Warm coastal waters worried some Louisiana residents about the potential for hurricanes. But Keim said there are other things to be worried about at the moment. “We’re teetering on the edge of drought,” he said.
Staying cool might be the biggest concern of all. Much of the housing in New Orleans is cooled with window air conditioning units that are not well sealed, making it difficult to keep the hot air out. “Everybody is not fortunate enough to have a car with AC or have a home with AC,” Curtis, the church secretary, said. The day prior, Curtis invited a woman into the church who had been waiting at a nearby bus stop when she was overcome by the heat.
“So just knowing that they can come to a safe place and sit down and get water and just cool off however long they need is, you know, that’s refreshing,” she said.
