After a resident complained about trekking two miles during a heat wave only to find a closed cooling center, Richmond Hill and Woodhaven’s community board District Manager sent a letter to the mayor, outraged at the situation and asking for a solution.
Mary Ann Carey, Community Board 9’s District Manager, said that last week, she got a call from a furious resident of Woodhaven who could find no relief from the heat wave last week.
On Saturday July 7, the man called 311 looking for a nearby cooling center when the temperatures were bumping over 90 degrees.
He told Carey that a 311 operator sent him to the Woodhaven Library at 85-41 Forest Parkway.
When he got there, however, after 1 p.m. on a Saturday, the library was closed.
He then tried his only other option for a cooling center in Community Board 9 and traveled about two miles to the Richmond Hill Library at 118-14 Hillside Ave—only to find it too closed.
“These libraries are on opposite ends of the district and the constituent in the heat and humidity on the hottest day of the year traveled from one center to the other in an attempt to find relief only to find the centers closed. This is an outrage,” Carey wrote in a letter Tuesday, addressed to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Carey said she has heard a few complaints this week about the cooling centers not being open long enough—but this man, who gave his complaint anonymously, was the most angered.
“He was so frustrated, and I can’t blame him because he was correct,” Carey said.
Carey said she spoke to a representative from the mayor’s office this week but was only given information about where and when residents can find cooling centers, which didn’t solve her main complaint.
So, in the letter, Carey asks that the mayor make arrangements to keep cooling centers open until at least 7 p.m. on days when they’re needed.
“Mayor Bloomberg, it would make more sense if you found cooling centers that are open later or around the clock, i.e. hospitals, or evacuation centers. Arrangement can be made with senior centers or religious facilities to remain open during emergencies,” she wrote.
She said right now the city has a reprieve from the heat, but as temperatures ramp up next week, there needs to be preparation—just like when temperatures fall in the winter.
“It’s jut like snow emergencies,” she said. “If you’re in an apartment building and you’re sweltering and then you go walking to the cooling center that’s advertised and they’re closed, that’s awful.”
By Jeremiah Dobruck
j.dobruck@theforumnewsgroup.com
