Heat-related 911 calls are on the rise across the county
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Good Morning, I’m Lawrence K. Jackson … it’s TUESDAY, OCTOBER SIXTH
>>>> [ HEAT RELATED EMERGENCY CALLS ARE ON THE RISE ACROSS THE COUNTY ]More on that next. But first... the headlines …#######
CONSTRUCTION IS UNDERWAY ON A THREE POINT ONE MILLION DOLLAR SECURITY FENCE AT THE SAN DIEGO POLICE DEPARTMENT’S DOWNTOWN HEADQUARTERS
THE CITY SAYS THERE IS FREQUENT VANDALISM, TRESPASSING AND DISTURBANCES AT THE POLICE HEADQUARTERS
CONSTRUCTION IS EXPECTED TO TAKE SEVERAL MONTHS …
THE SECURITY FENCE WILL BE EIGHT TO TEN FEET TALL AND SURROUND THE ENTIRE PROPERTY
IN A STATEMENT, SD-PD SAID THE MAIN BROADWAY ENTRANCE OF THE BUILDING WILL REMAIN OPEN TO THE PUBLIC DURING BUSINESS HOURS AND THE GATES WILL BE OPEN IN COMPLIANCE WITH PUBLIC-PARK SPACE REQUIREMENTS
SD-PD ADDS THAT THE OUTER GATES CAN AND WILL BE CLOSED AND LOCKED IN THE EVENT OF ANY CONCERNS AROUND SECURITY OR SAFETY
THE PROJECT’S BEEN IN DISCUSSION SINCE 20-18
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AFTER MORE THAN 10 MONTHS AT SEA, THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN IS EXPECTED TO ARRIVE BACK IN SAN DIEGO ON THURSDAY
THE SHIP LEFT SAN DIEGO LAST NOVEMBER AND SPENT MOST OF THE LAST YEAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
AIRCRAFT FROM THE SHIP LAUNCHED SOME OF THE FIRST AIR STRIKES IN THE U-S... ISRAELI WAR IN IRAN. BUT CONTROVERSY ERUPTED THIS SUMMER WITH REPORTS OF SUPPLY PROBLEMS AND LOW CREW MORALE
THE SHIP SPENT ABOUT EIGHT CONSECUTIVE MONTHS AT SEA WITHOUT STOPPING IN A PORT
THE LINCOLN WAS RELIEVED BY ANOTHER SAN DIEGO-BASED SHIP, THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON
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GAME THREE OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES KICKS OFF TONIGHT AT PETCO PARK
SO FAR … THE SERIES HAS BEEN A WHIRLWIND TO SAY THE LEAST
IN GAME ONE, PADRES FIRST BASEMAN TY FRANCE HIT WHAT HE THOUGHT WAS A NINTH-INNING HOME RUN
AS THE BALL CONTINUED TRAVELING UPWARD, IT HIT A ROOF CABLE AND WAS CAUGHT FOR AN OUT … AND AN EVENTUAL PADRES GAME 1 LOSS
GAME TWO RESULTED IN A FINAL SCORE OF FOUR TO THREE, WITH THE BREWERS TAKING THAT VICTORY ALSO
THIS NOW MEANS THAT TONIGHT AT SIXTY-THIRTY, ALL EYES ARE ON PETCO PARK AND YOUR SAN DIEGO PADRES ARE IN A “MUST WIN” GAME IN ORDER TO KEEP THEIR POSTSEASON HOPES ALIVE
From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
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HEAT-RELATED 911 CALLS ARE ON THE RISE IN THE REGION.
COUNTY DATA SHOW THOSE EMERGENCY CALLS FOR THE FIRST 9 MONTHS OF THIS YEAR HAVE ALREADY EXCEEDED TOTALS FROM ALL OF LAST YEAR.
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER TAMMY MURGA SAYS FIRST RESPONDERS EXPECT CALLS TO CONTINUE CLIMBING DURING THIS CURRENT HEAT WAVE.
The county says it has received 378 heat-related 911 calls through September 17th of this year. Last year it received a total of 247 calls all year long.
Willy Melendez is the city’s deputy fire chief. He says the totals could be undercounts.
911HEAT 1a 00:10
“Until the first responders arrive on scene and do more of an assessment, proper assessment, you know, you can really, a heat related incident really can come in many different forms.”
He says, in anticipation of this week’s heat wave, the city has additional ambulances on the streets and extended cooling center hours. The city has been alerting residents to those with texts and phone calls.
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“The city designates certain recreation centers and libraries for San Diegans to seek relief from the heat.”
Most 911 calls are coming from neighborhoods in the city of San Diego. And..Most of the calls came from people between the ages of 15 and 44.
San Diego County public health officer Dr. Sayone Thihalolipavan says that may be because…
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“We have a lot of folks who are working in San Diego outdoors. We have folks who are playing, you know, sports and things like that outdoors.”
The National Weather Service is forecasting temperatures will drop below 90 degrees starting Friday. Tammy Murga, KPBS News
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DOCTOR LINDSEY YOURMAN (YOUR-min) IS A GERIATRICIAN WITH U-C SAN DIEGO HEALTH. SHE SAT DOWN WITH MIDDAY EDITION HOST JADE HINDMON TO TALK ABOUT AN UPTICK IN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT… OR E-D… VISITS AND THE SIGNS OF HEAT ILLNESS.
XTREMEHEAT (midday) TRT 4:12 last words “thank you so much”
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Recent data shows that 911 has gotten more than 300 heat-related calls since mid-September. What have you heard from your colleagues? Are they seeing more hospital visits because of the heat?
My colleagues in the ED are reporting generally higher volume of ED visits. However, it doesn't necessarily show up as heat. It may show up as a heart event, kidney disease, asthma exacerbation, fall, or dehydration. So the actual numbers are hard to tally.
Well, tell me. I mean, how does extreme heat impact the body? What happens physiologically?
It's helpful to understand how we maintain normal temperature. We cool ourselves normally by sweating and by sending blood to the skin. So when it's very hot or humid, that system gets overwhelmed and the heart, kidneys, and brain are the organs that are most vulnerable. And how it affects the brain, if the brain is overheated, we see that as confusion, delirium, dizziness, and falls.
And in older adults, new confusion is often the first sign.
You mentioned older older people. Who's most vulnerable to extreme heat and why?
Yeah, so older adults are at the top of my list, of course. I'm a geriatrician.
And before I talk about why older adults are at higher risk, I also want to point out that babies and young children, people with chronic conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, lung disease, obesity, mental illness, developmental disabilities, outdoor workers and athletes who are outside between 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. and really people without air conditioning, you know, of any demographic, and people taking diuretics or certain medications.
Now, bottom line, it's people that can't always fend for themselves, too. And if someone is socially isolated, that will make someone more vulnerable. But as we age, we feel less thirst and we sweat less and we have less cardiac reserve. So many older adults are on medications that affect fluid balance and even temperature control. And an older person can get into trouble without feeling hot and thirsty.
That's a a point that I want to really emphasize is that we have to be on high alert for ourselves as as we age and looking in on our neighbors.
So many things can exacerbate, you know, your your health conditions if if you have a when do you know to go to the emergency room versus staying at home?
I think it's helpful to keep in mind two major events or conditions that can happen with extreme heat. One is heat exhaustion and the other is heat stroke. And it's important to know the difference because with heat exhaustion, sometimes you can manage that on your own, say going to a cooling zone. With heat stroke, that''s a call to 911.
So heat exhaustion shows up as heavy sweating, cold, pale, clammy skin, dizziness, headache, weakness, or tiredness, a fast, weak pulse, muscle cramps, nausea, or vomiting. If this happens, you have to use your judgment, but move to a cool place. That county has 33 cooling zones, loosen clothing, apply cool, wet cloths or take a cool bath, sip water, and get medical help right away if if vomiting.
That that's the extreme end of heat exhaustion. Now with heat stroke, that tends to occur when the body core temperature is 103 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. You might see red, hot, dry skin, throbbing headache, confusion, that's the main thing. So change in mental status can be an emergency, especially in a a vulnerable person. Slurred speech or hallucinations and, you know, at its worst, fainting.
So that's where you do want to call 911. While waiting, try to move the person to somewhere where it's cooler. Cool them off with cloths or a cool bath. Those are just some general warning signs to look out for.
Dr. Yerman, thanks so much.
Thank you so much.
TAG: THAT WAS DOCTOR LINDSEY YOURMAN (YOUR-min) SPEAKING WITH K-P-B-S’S JADE HINDMON
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THE HEAT WAVE IS DISRUPTING DAILY LIFE FOR MANY PEOPLE, INCLUDING LOCAL CHURCH SERVICE.
REPORTER AUDY MCAFEE TELLS US, ONE LOCAL CHURCH HAD TO MOVE SERVICES OUTSIDE TO KEEP PARISHONERS SAFE.
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Sunday masses are usually held inside this historic church, but today it’s empty. (Yesterday) Pastor Bernardo Lara made a decision to set up tents in the courtyard and set up the altar outside in an effort to keep parishioners safe.
“Around noon, we noticed that it was way too hot to be inside. And that's when it hit me, no, for Sunday mass, it's going to be overcrowded. There's no way we're going to be able to be inside.”
Father Lara says mass is usually an hour long, but (yesterday) he kept it to 30 minutes due to the extreme heat
He also says they do have big fans installed inside but they are noisy and at a certain point they only blow hot air.
“We just celebrated 120 years all of the community and the the the church building. For that reason, it's lacking in many benefits like insulation, AC. So, we are actually planning ahead for the next year because I think uh this is going to get worse. It's we're not going to go back.”
Father Lara says overall attendance has not been affected. Not even the extreme heat can keep the faithful away.
Audy McAfee KPBS.
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AT THE HEIGHT OF THE SUMMER HEAT WAVE LAST MONTH, DONOVAN STATE PRISON WENT INTO LOCKDOWN. SEVERAL INCARCERATED PEOPLE SAY OFFICIALS AT THE PRISON CONFINED THEM TO THEIR CELLS EVEN AS TEMPERATURES SOARED INDOORS.
SOUTH BAY REPORTER KORI SUZUKI SAYS IT HIGHLIGHTS A STATEWIDE CRISIS THAT ADVOCATES AND LAWMAKERS HAVE BEEN SOUNDING THE ALARM FOR YEARS
PRISONHEAT (4:50) SOQ
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From the main road, the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility is hard to see.
The state prison is in Otay Mesa, along the southern edge of San Diego County. It's kind of tucked away, down the street from a scrapyard and a few Amazon warehouses.
What you can tell from the street is just how hot it gets here.
SOT: 20260923_prisontemps_lonnie kocontes intv 3 / 17:52
It's stifling. It's stifling and highly frustrating.
Lonnie Kocontes has been incarcerated at Donovan for five years. We’re speaking over the phone….
Kocontes is a former lawyer from Orange County. He says they’ve seen a lot of hot days inside this summer — especially since there’s no air conditioning in his housing unit.
SOT: 20260923_prisontemps_lonnie kocontes intv 2 / 10:45
CG: On the phone: Lonnie Kocontes, Incarcerated person, Donovan Correctional Facility
All you can do when you're in the cell is is you know try to keep cold water on your body. Like I said you you know wet a towel and and keep keep wet putting it and she, you know, wrapping it around your neck.
Last month, though, was different
A brutal September heat wave brought a mix of intense heat and humidity to San Diego County. In Otay Mesa, temperatures soared to 100 degrees.
During that time, Kocontes says prison officials placed their housing unit on lockdown — in some cases for multiple days at a time.
Kocontes says officers kept them in their cells…Restricting their access to large fans, ice water and cooler areas like the day room.
SOT: 20260923_prisontemps_lonnie kocontes intv 3 / 17:59
I mean, you can look out the window in the cell door and see the day room and see these fans blowing. Um but if you're on lockdown, you can't you can't do anything. You can't get to them.
KPBS spoke with two other incarcerated people at Donovan — Brian Christman and Grant, who asked us not to share his last name because he is worried about retaliation. Both of them described similar conditions. Grant says the thermometer in his cell reached as high as 94 degrees.
In total, Kocontes and Grant estimate that they were on lockdown for three to six days during the heat wave. Christman says it was more like two weeks.
State prison officials confirmed to KPBS that they did implement lockdowns during the heat wave.
In an email, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said staff were still following their heat plan — a special protocol that state prisons are supposed to follow when it hits certain temperatures outside.
But the incarcerated people say Donovan wasn’t consistently following those steps. CDCR didn’t respond to specific questions and wouldn’t agree to an interview.
The accounts from Donovan also line up with concerns at other state prisons.
SOT: 20260928_prisonheat_eric henderson / 18:27
What the people you spoke with described is a very common experience that people incarcerated in state prisons have.
Eric Henderson is with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland. He says incarcerated people are relying almost entirely on the state to protect them.
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CG: Eric Henderson, Policy Director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
If you or I got really hot, we could turn on the air conditioner, we could turn on the fan, we could help ourselves with some water, we could access ice or a cooling center [...] And many of those same preventative and protective measures are simply not available to incarcerated people.
That’s partly because California’s state prisons are 50 years old on average. Henderson says many of them are made from concrete and other materials that don’t protect from extreme temperatures. Three out of four prisons don’t have traditional air conditioning.
State inspectors have also found CDCR doesn’t keep consistent records of how hot and cold it gets at each prison. Even though they’re supposed to.
CDCR does have its heat plan… but advocates say that protocol is old too.
SOT: 20260930_prisonheat_lily harvey / 16:08
There's some major flaws in what it does and doesn't account for.
Lily Harvey is with the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit legal firm in Berkeley. It was one of their lawsuits that forced CDCR to develop a heat plan back in the 90s.
But Harvey says the plan doesn’t go far enough.
For example, it lists certain cooling methods like ice water and fans, but doesn’t require the use of specific measures. That, Harvey says, leaves many people facing uncomfortable levels of heat.
SOT: 20260930_prisonheat_lily harvey / 24:50
CG: Lily Harvey, Senior Staff Attorney, Prison Law Office
The reports we get also go far beyond discomfort. [...] I have received multiple letters from people in different institutions describing this feeling like a fish out of water and and asthma attacks and increased seizure activity, things like that. Um and people are scared.
Harvey says the heat plan also doesn’t say anything about what happens during lockdowns.
As climate change brings more intense heat waves to California, incarcerated people and their advocates are pressing the state to take action. Harvey says it feels like those calls are finally gaining traction.
Earlier this year, state Assemblymember Mike Gipson proposed a bill called Adrienne’s Act. It would have required CDCR to overhaul its cooling measures statewide and install air conditioning and heat monitors.
Gipson named the bill after Adrienne Boulware…who died in state custody two years ago during a heat wave in the Central Valley. Gipson told an Assembly committee she was less than a year away from going home.
SOT: 20260422_prisonheat_gipson assembly hearing / 16:57
CG: Mike Gipson, D-Gardena
Her death is not just a statistic. It is a tragedy that and it is a warning. A warning that the status quo is spelling, and the inactive and the inaction has real human consequences.
Lawmakers failed to move Gipson’s bill forward this spring. Advocates say they’re going to try again next year.
In Otay Mesa this weekend, temperatures soared again to almost one hundred degrees.
Kori Suzuki, KPBS News.
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CALIFORNIA’S ATTORNEY GENERAL ROB BONTA HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE YESTERNDAY) TO REASSURE VOTERS THAT MAILED BALLOTS WILL COUNTED AS USUAL.
PUBLIC MATTERS REPORTER JAKE GOTTA SAYS IT COMES DESPITE FEDERAL EFFORTS TO CURTAIL THE PRACTICE.
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attorney general rob bonta wants california voters to know, mailed ballots are still a secure way to vote.
rob bonta, ca attorney general
“i know some californians may be wondering whether everything coming out of washington has changed how they can vote. and the answer is no. it is business as usual.”
bonta said this is in spite of efforts from the trump administration to restrict who can be mailed a ballot through the us postal service; his office went to court to stop those restrictions.
and bonta addressed the concern that immigration officials might be present at polling places on election day. a recent ucsd survey found forty percent of respondents thought this was likely to happen.
rob bonta, ca attorney general
“there's no role for immigration enforcement at the polls. no role. it's a crime to send armed federal law enforcement, including ice, to polling places. the federal law prohibits that right now.”
bonta also urged california voters who will be mailing in their ballot to do so at least a week early to make sure their vote is counted.
california accepts mailed ballots up to seven business days after election day.
jake gotta, kpbs news
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That’s it for today’s pod. This podcast is edited by Brooke Ruth and is hosted and produced by myself, Lawrence K. Jackson. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
