Missoula is one of the largest cities in Montana, but it is surrounded by mountainous areas where cattle farming is thriving. Despite its high latitude and altitude, the region has been hit by severe summer heat in recent years.
Residents are finding it difficult to adjust to warmer temperatures and new seasons. Many don’t have air conditioning and are unprepared for a new pattern of daytime temperatures hovering around 90 degrees Fahrenheit for days or even weeks at a time. There are many health complications that can develop from excessive exposure to high temperatures, including dehydration, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and abnormal heart rate and blood pressure.
Missoula firefighter Andrew Drobek says it could happen to anyone, anywhere. He remembers a recent 911 call: Temperatures topped 90 degrees that day, and an employee at a local dollar store had passed out. “She doesn’t handle the heat very well. The store’s air conditioning wasn’t very good,” Drobek said. “I guess she only got a 15-minute break.”
Drobeck said many of the heatstroke calls his department receives come from elderly people struggling to stay cool in their older homes, and Montana has one of the fastest-aging populations in the country. About one in four residents I am 60 years old or older. I am 65 years old or older. Particularly vulnerable According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, your risk of heat-related illness increases every year. As you age, your body doesn’t adapt to heat as well as it did when you were younger, so you sweat less.
A heat wave swept across much of the western United States in July, breaking temperature records for both daily high temperatures and the number of days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. While the Northwest, including western Montana, is typically cooler, the region has experienced record-breaking heat this summer.
Emergency responders like Drobek have noticed this: Drobek says that 911 calls have gone up during heat waves over the past few summers. But Missoula County officials wanted to know more. They wanted more data about which residents were calling and which areas were most affected by heat waves. So the county worked with researchers at the University of Montana to sift through the data and create a map of 911 calls during heat waves.
The team combined 2020 call data with census data to see who lives in areas with higher numbers of emergency calls during hot weather. Their analysis found that for every 1 degree (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average temperature, 911 calls increased by 1 percent, the researchers said. Christina BarskyCo-author the study.
While this may sound like a small increase, Barsky explained that a 5 degree increase in average daily temperatures could translate into hundreds of additional 911 calls over the course of a month. These high call volumes can put a strain on emergency responders and local hospitals.
The Missoula study also found that the highest number of emergency calls during the heatwave were in rural areas, away from the Missoula urban center. This shows that rural communities are suffering from the heat, even if they receive less media attention, Barsky said. “What do those people do? What do those places that are experiencing the heat at a rate that they never expected before do?” she said.
Barsky’s research has shown that areas with more residents over 65 tend to see more 911 calls during heatwaves, which may be one reason why rural Missoula County is seeing so many more 911 calls. Barsky said people who live in rural and small town Montana tend to be older and more susceptible to serious heat illness.
And aging in rural areas can pose additional problems during heat waves. Even if it cools down at night, seniors without air conditioning may not be able to tolerate high temperatures inside their homes for hours during the day. It’s not uncommon for rural residents to have to drive more than an hour to get to a library that might have air conditioning, a community center with a cool room, or a medical facility. This isolation and scattered resources aren’t unique to Montana. “I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,” Barsky says. “There was no air-conditioned place within at least 50 miles. The hospital was 100 miles away.”
Heat studies like the Missoula study are primarily Big citiesis often hotter than the surrounding areas.Heat Island“Effect.” This phenomenon explains why cities can get hotter during the day and harder to cool down at night. This is because pavement, buildings, and other structures absorb and retain heat. Urban residents can experience hotter temperatures during the day and harder to cool down at night.
In contrast, researchers are only just beginning to study and understand the impacts of heatwaves in rural areas, where the effects of extreme heat have been largely ignored, he said. Elizabeth DolanDolan, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Vermont. Ongoing research A Vermont study found that even towns as small as 5,000 people can be hotter at night than the surrounding rural areas because of radiant heat from hot sidewalks. “If we as a society only focus on big cities, we’re going to miss a large portion of the population and our strategies will be limited in their effectiveness,” Dolan said.
With Brock Slabak National Rural Health Associationagrees that rural residents desperately need help adapting to extreme heat. They need help setting up air conditioning or getting to air-conditioned places to cool off during the day. Many rural residents have mobility issues or don’t drive as much due to age or disability. They also often have to travel farther to get medical services, which could lead to more serious health conditions if medical care is delayed further during a heat-related emergency. “It’s not at all unreasonable to suggest that people would be harmed by not having access to such services,” he said.
Helping rural residents adapt will be difficult. Rural people need help where they live, in their homes, he said. Adrian BeckBeck, the Missoula County Emergency Management director, said opening cooling centers in small communities may help people who live in towns, but it’s unrealistic to expect people to drive more than an hour to cool off. The Missoula County Office of Disaster and Emergency Services said it plans to use the 911 survey data to get a better understanding of why people call 911 in the first place.
Over the next few years, the department plans to talk directly to people who live in rural areas about what they need to adapt to rising temperatures. “It might just be a matter of knocking on their door and asking, ‘Would you benefit from air conditioning? How can we connect you to resources to make that happen?'” Beck said.
But Missoula County officials said they don’t have the funds at the county or state level to buy so many air conditioners, and that’s not possible for every rural home, so the county wants to develop a plan for heat waves and put in place specific steps to reach out to and help vulnerable rural residents.
“Ideally, when we know this is happening, we’d like to have a situation where we can send local emergency personnel out to assess the situation and prevent hospitalizations,” Beck explained, adding that preventing hospitalizations due to heatstroke among rural residents would ultimately save lives.
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