Burning pavement, scalding water hoses: Perils of a Phoenix heat wave

Burning pavement, scalding water hoses: Perils of a Phoenix heat wave

Landscaper Eduardo Rios can feel those moments when the familiar in Phoenix morphs into the treacherous, as the skin under his straw hat starts peeling off his forehead, the heat radiating up through his steel-toe boots.To get more news about low temperature burn, you can visit shine news official website.

Adrienne Kane tries to hike five days a week, even in summer, but she doubles her water and wears gardening gloves so the metal railings on Camelback Mountain don’t burn her palms during times like this week. Dale Dean, who is homeless, sometimes settles into the seat of his black wheelchair and it feels like he’s “sitting down on hot coals.
Phoenix is in the middle of a record-breaking run of feverish days and suffocating nights, and human skin is a meager barrier against the scorching and scalding that comes at these temperatures. The city has already smashed records for the highest low temperatures for this time of year, when nights never dropped below the 90s, and it has already had 13 consecutive days — with Thursday expected to be the 14th — at or above 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The record for that is 18, set in 1974, according to the National Weather Service. And the worst of the heat is coming this weekend.

The city and a network of aid organizations mobilize on a large scale during these periods — with cooling centers and programs to distribute water and ice to vulnerable residents. Earlier this year, the city painted its 100th mile of pavement with a light gray coating that is cooler than typical streets. Billboards around the city broadcast temperatures; some hiking trails are closed during midday; tons of snow gets dumped at the zoo to keep animals cool.

“We’re concerned about the severity of the temperatures to begin with, but the consecutive nature of them adds to the public health risk,” said David Hondula, director of Phoenix’s office of heat response and mitigation. “This is a time for maximum vigilance in the community.”

Cameron had just stepped into the laundry room to feed his dog and his wife was in the bathroom when their 18-month-old son, Mason, slipped through the pet door and stepped onto their concrete patio. He was screaming within seconds.

“It was so fast,” recalled Cameron, who asked that he and his family only be identified by first names to avoid shaming from other parents. “It was immediately blistered on one foot. I knew it was bad.Mason suffered second-degree burns on the soles of his feet that day in May, when Phoenix temperatures were only in the 90s, but the concrete had gotten hot enough to be dangerous. When the family reached the Arizona Burn Center at Valleywise Health Medical Center, they met another toddler with burned feet.

“It was the exact same thing at the exact same time: 2 p.m., kid walked out onto the balcony,” Cameron said. “As a citizen of Phoenix … I wonder, is it just going to keep getting hotter? How much hotter is it going to get?”
The city’s hospitals and firefighters this week have been trying to help people who are seared by pavement that can register 160 degrees or hotter. They are treating patients whose temperatures are running as much as 10 degrees above normal by injecting them with frigid IV fluids, blasting them with evaporative cooling fans, and placing them in what look like small inflatable kayaks filled with ice.

Doctors at the burn center this week said they had 10 patients with contact burns serious enough to require hospitalization. The number of burn admissions has grown over the past decade, as temperatures have risen and days with extreme heat have become more common. In 2015, the hospital admitted 43 people during the summer months with burns. Last summer, that number rose to 85, and seven of the people died.