LA extends hours at some cooling centers as heat wave arrives

As the season’s first serious heat wave arrives, the city of Los Angeles is extending hours at several senior and recreation centers in the hottest neighborhoods as “cooling centers.”

The following places will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. through Sunday:

• Canoga Park Senior Citizen Center (7326 Jordan Ave., Canoga Park, 91303)

• North Hollywood Senior Citizen Center (5301 Tujunga Ave., North Hollywood, 91601)
  
• Pecan Recreation Center (145 S. Pecan St., Boyle Heights)

• Algin Sutton Recreation Center (8800 S. Hoover St., South L.A.)

The Chinatown Branch Library (639 N. Hill St.) and Pacoima Branch Library (13605 Van Nuys Blvd., Pacoima) will be open on Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.

L.A. County libraries also announced Wednesday that they will extend hours at many of their locations Thursday through Saturday.

On Thursday and Friday, all county libraries will be open until at least 7 p.m. (Libraries with normal weekday hours from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. will stay open during their normal hours). On Saturday, all locations will be open until at least 7 p.m., except for West Hollywood and Topanga. Find the most up-to-date information on library cooling centers here.

In addition, any public place — including community centers, pools and splash pads — can be considered a cooling center, said Marta Segura, the city’s chief heat officer.

Why it matters

Temperatures are expected to be up to 15 degrees above normal for this time of year — in the high 90s and low 100s across much of Southern California — through at least the weekend.

L.A. County defines “extreme heat events” as three or more consecutive days with temperatures above 90 degrees. On such days, there are 1,177 excess emergency room visits in L.A. due to heat illness, according to research from UCLA.

Cooling centers are a key strategy for many cities to protect public health during heat waves, which are getting hotter and longer as a result of pollution in our atmosphere.

Why cooling centers?

When the National Weather Service issues an extreme heat alert or extreme heat watch for our region, as it did Monday, the city considers opening what are called “augmented” cooling centers, which is a fancy way of saying they’ll extend hours for some public buildings so people can find refuge there late into the evening, Segura said.

The spots were identified by the mayor’s public safety office, Segura said, and aim to serve people in low-income, hotter areas, where residents may not have sufficient air conditioning or are concerned about their utility bills.

The city did not respond to LAist’s request for comment for more details on the specific locations before publication.

Do cooling centers work?

L.A. has been slowly gathering information on how effective these cooling stations are, and who exactly they serve.

In past years, the augmented cooling centers have not been very well-used. Segura said that in her office’s outreach, they’ve learned that many people simply don’t know about them. It’s one reason why her office has developed heat education materials in multiple languages.

“There's always been this question about do cooling centers really work well? Yes, they work when we have outreach, when we have activities and resources, when they're comfortable, when people want to be there,” Segura said.

Last year, the city launched a pilot program at five public libraries in some of the highest-risk, hottest neighborhoods.

Segura said her office is hoping to start surveying people who use those libraries later this summer.

But “anecdotally,” her office hears that more people are coming to the libraries on Sundays, but they need more data to better understand why — whether it’s to shelter from heat or for other reasons.

Funding challenges

Extending city library hours on Sundays has been something Segura’s office and the City Council has asked for amid worsening heat. But local budget issues and federal rollbacks of clean energy incentives have slowed that effort. Many libraries need HVAC system repairs and upgrades, and the city did not provide additional funding to extend hours and staff, Segura said.

“We need more capacity,” Segura said. “ We want to make more libraries, particularly in the high risk areas, open on Sundays. Because heat doesn't know what day of the week it is. So if we can open them on Sundays and maybe eventually on holidays just like we do our augmented cooling centers, that would be the ideal scenario.”