Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is declaring a heat state of emergency — but only of three of Arizona’s 15 counties.
The declaration issued Friday for Maricopa, Pinal and Coconino counties is based on the National Weather Service issuing excessive heat warnings there for 30 consecutive days. That provided a legal basis for Hobbs to decide the situation had reached emergency levels.
The declaration frees up $200,000 that can be used to reimburse local government agencies in those counties for additional costs they have incurred between June 30 and July 30 related to the heat.
The rest of the state isn’t being entirely left out. Hobbs issued a separate executive order Friday requiring various state agencies to develop plans for future excessive heat situations.
Most of that involves coming up with proposals and programs that won’t be ready for months, however.
For example, the Governor’s Office of Resiliency is charged with developing an “extreme heat response plan’’ by March, one designed to ensure the state is prepared to respond to, and recover from, extreme heat in future years. The same agency is supposed to propose changes in state law designed to protect the elderly, children, medically vulnerable and other affected communities from extreme heat.
Hobbs is providing the agency with $13.3 million of federal dollars to prevent power outages and improve the resilience of the grid across the state.
The state health director has been told to come up with a plan to allocate resources to respond to extreme heat, ranging from emergency room use and heat-related workplace incidents to morgue capacity and distribution of cooling and heat-relief centers.
Hobbs’ executive order includes opening two new cooling centers near the Capitol in Phoenix where many homeless people gather, one in an existing office building and another in a cooled storage container specially equipped to provide short-term heat relief. Neither, however, will be open on a 24-hour basis.
Local officials in the three counties under the emergency declaration praised the move.
“This has been a brutally hot summer so far in Pinal County,’’ said Supervisor Jeffrey McClure in a prepared statement released by the Governor’s Office. “We welcome any support that the governor and the state can offer that can help provide relief to our residents.’’
In Maricopa County, Robert Rowley, director of its division of emergency management, said the county’s Human Services Department has been providing additional funds for cooling and respite centers. It also has been spending money in home and air conditioner repair for those who cannot afford it.
Patrice Horstman, who chairs the Coconino County Board of Supervisors, said temperatures at the bottom of the Grand Canyon this summer sometimes topped 115, “contributing to multiple heat-related hiker deaths and injuries in July.’’
Horstman said the record heat in her county also “took a toll on our unsheltered population.’’
According to the National Weather Service, the general rule of thumb for an excessive heat warning is when the maximum heat index temperature — what it feels like for the human body — is expected to be 105 degrees or higher for at least two days, and nighttime air temperatures will not drop below 75 degrees.
The decision to issue an excessive heat warning is based on more than absolute temperatures, said Sean Benedict, lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Phoenix. He said it also includes factors such as what is “normal’’ for an area.
