High temperatures prompt response

Zach Hoffman in Disaster News Network: A heat-front blazed through the Mid-Atlantic Monday as temperatures soared into the upper 90s, even breaking 100 degrees, from Massachusetts to North Carolina. “High pressures over the mid-Atlantic will bring the warmest temperatures of the year,” said forecasters at the National Weather Service (NWS) said Monday.

In Baltimore, Maryland, Interim Health Commissioner Olivia D. Farrow issued a Code Red Heat Alert from Sunday, Aug. 9 through Tuesday, Aug. 11. According to the Baltimore Heat Watch Warning System, high temperatures pose potential danger to people who are more than 60 years of age or less than five years.

To combat the heat the Department of Recreation and Parks has plans to open 46 recreation centers during their normal operation hours to provide people with cooling centers equipped with air-conditioning cold water.

… Just a short distance away, in Washington D.C., other cooling centers have been set up in senior centers and government buildings across the city, as well as implementation of the Street Showers Program.

According to spokespersons from the D.C. Office of Emergency Preparedness, when the heat index hits 100 the city has plans to open 17 fire hydrants in designated public housing communities so residents will not result to drastic measures to keep cool.

Sky over Baltimore's inner harbor after a storm has passed in 2005, shot by Mark Peters, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2