On Monday, the National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings for much of Oregon, including Southern Oregon. In Medford, the forecast calls for consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures through Sunday. In response, the city of Medford has partnered with several local non-profits to open a cooling center all week long, from Monday through Friday, at two city locations. Aaron Ott is Medford’s emergency management coordinator. Melanie Doshier is the director of support services at ACCESS, a non-profit that serves low-income residents in Jackson County, which is responsible for managing the cooling center. They join us to talk about protecting vulnerable residents from extreme heat.
Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: Yesterday, the National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings for big chunks of Oregon. In Medford, it’s going to be 105 today and tomorrow and 109 degrees on Wednesday and Thursday. In response, the city has partnered with several local nonprofits to open a series of cooling centers in different locations. Aaron Ott is Medford’s Emergency Management Coordinator. Melanie Doshier is the Director of Support Services at ACCESS. It’s a nonprofit that serves low income residents in Jackson County and is helping to manage the cooling centers right now. Aaron Ott, to start with you, how do you make the decision to open a cooling site?
Aaron Ott: We monitor what the weather pattern looks at and do it a week ahead of time. We have a great resource here in Medford. We have the National Weather Service located here in Medford. And they’re on speed dial, not just for summer months, but also winter months. And we really try to keep a seven-day rolling calendar outlook. We started planning accordingly based on different parameters and what temperatures look like and what needs to occur to support all groups within the City of Medford.
Miller: Do you have a particular temperature trigger that when it gets to X degrees you spring into action?
Ott: Yeah, the City of Medford has severe event declaration capability. So for cold weather, we look at anything at 25 or below or 32 below with continuous days or other prescient factors. For hot weather, we look at 102 or higher or if they’re consecutive days. So this week, today we’re actually, you said 105. I hope it’s only 105. We’re actually forecasting for 108 today. So we have a whole week of over 105 throughout the week that we’re looking at.
Miller: What do these sites offer? And it’s going to be, if I’m not mistaken, today through Thursday at the Medford Library and then Friday at 1st Presbyterian Church. What happens at these sites?
Ott: Well, the biggest thing in four months is air conditioning. Get them in and out of the heat. There’s refreshments, anywhere from popsicles or granola bars and things like that. And I’m sure Melanie can obviously offer some more insight of what goes on at those sites as well.
Miller: Melanie Doshier, as I noted, you’re the Director of Support Services at ACCESS, one of the nonprofits actually managing these roving sites. So this is day two of operating the cooling centers. How is it going so far?
Melanie Doshier: It’s been going relatively smoothly other than yesterday when we had the power outage and had to change locations quickly. The actual event at the new location was very smooth, everybody was very grateful. I can speak to what we do offer there a little bit more deeply. We have cold beverages, ice water, often have misting stations if they are allowed at the locations that we’re at. And then once inside the location, there’s nice safe places to rest. We can lay out some mats at the location allowing people to nap in the air conditioning room. And then we always have ACCESS outreach staff on-site that does a lot of navigation work as well with the participants. So if somebody is interested in gaining access to one of our sheltering options from the Medford severe weather shelter, we make connections at that point.
Miller: How often do people actually take advantage of those services or referrals or information for future help when they come in to get out of the heat or to get, in the winter, out of the cold?
Doshier: I would say that the connection to longer term sheltering options is more prevalent in the winter months than it is in the summer months. I think that the percentage is probably similar to what you heard from the gentleman who spoke from the City of Portland. One in 10 is about accurate. But it is about the consistent showing up and building trust in the relationships that we have with service resistant populations. I would say the severe weather events are where we make connection with individuals who are less likely to make connections with sheltering options, but for the fact that the weather is putting their life and health at risk.
Miller: And then the thinking is you can, perhaps over time, build trust?
Doshier: I would say that that is the thinking and I’ve got some stories of individuals that we have made connections with over hundreds of times and then finally make the decision that they wanted to move into a sheltered lifestyle.
Miller: Literally hundreds of times before they make that decision?
Doshier: It can take lots of times and it can take a little bit of times. We all have the ability to make different decisions tomorrow than we did today.
Miller: It seems like if you’re saying that one of the big services you can offer is navigating social services and helping people get housing, it seems like many of the people who are using these services now, cooling shelters, are people who don’t, themselves, have homes?
Doshier: I would say the majority of the individuals that we see at the cooling shelter do come from the unhoused population. I would not say it’s exclusive depending on the housing situations that individuals have in the community, whether they do or don’t have air conditioning. As the last time we called the severe weather shelter, there was also a power outage in Medford and the shelter did see a higher level of housed individuals that came to utilize the air conditioning because of the power outage.
Miller: Older people can also be more vulnerable to severe reactions to excessive heat. Do you see a fair number of seniors coming in?
Doshier: We do see a fair number of seniors coming in. I looked at the most recent data and over 20% of the population that we saw at the last three severe weather events have been over the age of 55.
Miller: How do you spread the word to make sure that the people who need these services actually know they’re available?
Ott: We use several different mediums to do that. First, we have a great, what we call, livability team, a group of highly trained officers from Medford Police Department that pretty much patrol up and down what we call the greenway, running the whole duration of the City. They’re making contact with individuals. And when they know that we’re having a shelter open, they do a verbal mouth to mouth. And another thing that we do is we obviously involve our media partners to disseminate. And then we’ve also created a nixel keyword that anybody could log into ‘Medford Shelters’. And anytime we have a shelter open up, if you’re logged into that nixel keyword, you get a text message saying, ‘hey we have a shelter opened up this time frame at this location’ and it’s really worked well. Even people in vulnerable groups have access and a lot of them have cell phone devices so they’re able to opt into that service and things like that. And then we’ve also gone to where we’ve actually deployed signage along different components of the city and the corridors where we know vulnerable populations congregate.
Miller: What do you see as the biggest challenges in running these shelters from the City’s perspective?
Ott: Oh, I think there’s several challenges. Not all vulnerable population groups can cross cohabitate very well sometimes. They all have specific needs and need different types of resources. So our goal is really to make sure that we can adequately get the right resource to the appropriate group - if that’s a migratory agricultural worker who is non-English speaking, we try to facilitate making sure we have some individuals that are good in their dialect so they can communicate and feel comfortable and safe. It’s also making sure, and ACCESS does a great job of having their staff trained up, that if somebody is going to a mental health crisis, they know how to help deescalate that situation. People on fixed income may have a home and they have the means, they just don’t have the means to run the air conditioner 24/7. It’s just opening up and trying to identify what each group needs and then facilitating that in the most appropriate way.
Miller: Melanie Doshier, your organization helped run cooling centers during last year’s heat dome. How does this year compare so far?
Doshier: Thus far, this week-long heat dome is comparable. Off the top of my head, I want to say last year it was an 11-day stretch. So at this point, we’re looking at five potentially into six on Saturday. So we are not having quite the extreme experience that we had last year as well as the air quality this year has leaned towards being a little bit better. So that has been a significant positive impact on the in-house populations and the individuals that would be looking for a reprieve from the heat.
Miller: Last year was smoke and heat?
Doshier: Last year was smoke and heat and we never quite reached the index that would have been considered an event for only smoke. But the combination of the smoke and the heat was pretty extreme last year.
Miller: Well, the smoke reminds me of the year before that, the devastating Alameda fire, especially in Talent and Phoenix. Are you still seeing the effects in terms of people who lost their homes in those fires? Are those people seeking shelter now from heat?
Doshier: Absolutely. We absolutely are still seeing the effects of the Alameda and Obenchains fire that devastated Jackson County in 2020.
Miller: Meanwhile, climate change is only going to create more extreme weather events. What do you see as the need for cooling or heating shelters going forward?
Doshier: I see the need to really dive deep into the relationships with community based organizations and government agencies that are willing to pull resources together. Whether that be volunteer hours, building location, staffing support, fiscal sponsorship, all of the things that need to be able to stand up these emergency shelters when we have severe weather evac called. I think we just need to continue to build on the relationships that currently exist, inviting in new partnerships so that we can continue to provide services to those that are in need.
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