Air conditioning is a life saver in extreme heat. What if you don’t have it?

Some resources available for cooling assistance in Iowa, but they aren’t widely known

Aug. 24, 2023 5:00 am

The only time Henry Olsen turned his air conditioning on, his wife was dying of kidney cancer in 2019.

He had purchased the unit to make her final days in hospice as comfortable as possible. He hasn’t used it since, calling it an “extravagance” he can’t afford to use in his house in northeast Cedar Rapids.

Even though he has a printer and computer, 56-year-old Olsen has repeatedly come to the Cedar Rapids Downtown Library computer lab this summer to fill out government documents. He fears his own equipment will overheat, and he can’t afford to replace them.

Olsen — who identifies as disabled — said it’s a struggle to keep himself cool as well. His two box fans can’t do the job, moving hot air around like a convection oven. He fills his bathtub with cold water and sits in it for some relief. Still, his sleeping is restless, punctured by the discomfort of the hot nights.

“It’s sweltering … There are times when you just feel like you’re baking,” he said about his home. “People that aren't straight in financial circumstances don't really have a lot they can do about it.”

Iowa and much of the central U.S. are enduring dangerous heat this week. Feels-like temperatures in Eastern Iowa reached 120 degrees Wednesday afternoon, and Cedar Rapids temperatures broke records. The National Weather Service Quad Cities bureau issued an excessive heat warning — the top heat-related warning — from Eastern Iowa to western Illinois on Monday morning. It has since been extended into Friday for a portion of southeastern Iowa.

Residents in Eastern Iowa and beyond are instructed to find shelter from the deadly heat in air-conditioned spaces. For many, that’s a challenge. And experts say there need to be more resources during such dangerous conditions.

Extreme heat creates a hierarchy of related illnesses for vulnerable people.

At the very least, it can cause muscle cramping and dehydration. Symptoms can progress into heat exhaustion, where victims can get dizzy and clammy. At the most extreme, people can experience life-threatening heat strokes that may come with severe fevers, altered mental states, nausea and headaches.

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“It really is a medical emergency and needs to be treated as such,” said Peter Thorne, a University of Iowa professor who has worked in public health for around 35 years.

In 2022, there were 1,037 reported visits to Iowa emergency departments due to heat-related illness, according to state data. There were 49 hospitalizations.

Some emergency departments are reporting similar cases so far this summer.

In late July, UnityPoint Health – St. Luke’s Hospital Emergency Room treated three individuals with heat-related injuries, one of whom had to be hospitalized. The team has treated two people for such injuries this week.

Mercy Medical Center reported seven to 10 heat-related cases over the last two weeks — which anecdotally seemed slightly higher than normal to team members in the emergency room, said director of marketing Mark Wehr.

Health risks from extreme heat are projected to worsen with climate change.

From 1976 to 2005 in Iowa, the average maximum temperature over each year’s hottest five-day period was about 92 degrees. It is projected to go up to 98 degrees in the coming decades, Thorne said.

“Iowa’s going to be hotter, and we know that we need to really adapt very effective public health measures to try to save people from impacts,” he said.

Ninety percent of homes in the U.S. had air conditioning in 2020. The feature can seem commonplace — until it isn’t.

Angela Schulte, 48, became unhoused on May 1 when her Marion landlord evicted her for pet damage. She has an autoimmune condition and a thyroid condition. Both ailments, along with lack of nutrition, make her more sensitive to temperature extremes.

“This is first time I've ever been homeless,” she said in the Cedar Rapids Downtown Library, where she went to stay cool. “There is a kind of … grief, despair that comes with not having the ability to leave a situation for comfort when you are traditionally used to it.”

This summer, volunteers from homeless service organizations found 123 people living on the streets in Linn County — more than ever before. The community is especially vulnerable to extreme heat.

But even people with homes may not have access to the most important protection against extreme heat. There’s little to no public data on how many households in Iowa have air conditioning. And some institutions don’t have the resource, too.

Inmates at the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility and the Anamosa State Penitentiary, for instance, don’t have access to air conditioning.

Of UNI’s 10 residence halls, six don’t have air-conditioning. Of Iowa State University’s 20 residence halls, half include rooms that aren’t air-conditioned — meaning about one-third of ISU’s thousands of on-campus residents are sleeping in the excessive heat.

Some people lack air conditioning at their workplaces, too. In 2021, 36 American workers died from exposure to environmental heat. There were no reported heat-related deaths in Iowa.

Agricultural workers, construction workers, landscapers and mechanics are just a few examples of occupations that are typically outdoors. About a third of the American workforce is exposed to the outdoors, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Patrick O’Shaughnessy, the director of the UI Heartland Center for Occupational Health and Safety, estimated that there’s tens of thousands of such workers in Iowa.

“It's a big segment of the of the occupational workforce of the state, I would say,” he said.

Shantel Thompson was all smiles as she laid on a red and white striped towel under a tree in Greene Square, watching her 8-year-old son tromp through the nearby splash pad. She was enjoying the weather, heat and all.

“It feels very hot but also very nice because we’ve got the water,” her son, Shamar Davis, said between splashes. “I get to cool down in the water.”

Public health measures during extreme heat have come a long way, Thorne said.

Heat-related warnings and advisories are widely dispersed across media and social media. Some popular areas throughout the state, like Greene Square, provide splash pads or pools for residents to cool off in. Many counties and towns also provide cooling centers that folks without air conditioning can access.

But, to ensure safety during extreme heat, many insist more needs to be done. Cooling assistance for Iowa residents is not widely known, according to Gazette interviews.

Iowa’s Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, can help eligible households in need of cooling assistance. These benefits can go toward past-due bills to either avert a disconnection, restore service or provide emergency cooling equipment such as fans or air conditioning units.

The Iowa Utilities Board enforces a winter home heating moratorium that prevents utilities from disconnecting electric or gas services during cold winter months. There is no such moratorium during hot summer months. Yet both Alliant Energy and MidAmerican Energy voluntarily pause service disconnections during extreme heat, company spokespeople said.

Local community action agencies don’t have as many resources for residents in the summers. Linn County General Assistance and Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, for example, are widely used for their heating assistance. But they don’t provide further help for cooling needs, like air conditioners or fans.

There are still no federal heat standards to lower the risk of heat-related illnesses in the workplace, O’Shaughnessy said.

Given the serious nature of heat-related illnesses, experts said more cooling assistance and protections are necessary to keep Iowans safe and comfortable.

“We need to have policymakers recognize that these changes are here, and they're only going to get more severe and we need to prepare for that,” Thorne said. “Whether there's political will? I think a summer like this will, sadly, be the wake-up call.”

Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

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