Relentless heat led to 645 deaths last year in Maricopa County, the most ever documented in Arizona’s biggest metropolitan area. The soaring number of heat mortalities — a 1,000 percent increase over 10 years — comes as temperatures reach new highs amid exploding eviction rates in the Phoenix area, leading to a collision of homelessness and record-setting heat waves.
The crisis has left local officials searching for answers in a region that regularly relies on churches more than the government to save people’s lives by offering them a cool place to hide from the desert air.
Almost half of the victims last year were homeless — 290 people. Twenty died at bus stops, others were in tents, and an unrecorded number of people were found on the pavement, prone as if on a baking stone. More than 250 other people — who tended to be older, ill or unlucky — died in uncooled homes, on bikes or just going for a walk.
Phoenix officials are trying to reduce this year’s death count — but their fleeting plans hinge on temporary funding. They’re using nearly $2 million in federal pandemic-relief funding to operate new cooling centers. Unlike previous efforts, the centers will remain open into the evening, or even overnight, in areas with high heat death rates.
