Atlanta City Council member proposes citywide heat safety plan as temperatures climb

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — After Atlanta hit 96 degrees with a heat index of 102 over the Fourth of July weekend, a City Council member is pushing legislation to formalize how the city responds when extreme heat threatens public health.

Atlanta typically opens cooling centers as temperatures climb, but Councilmember Kelsea Bond said the city lacks a consistent, codified process to ensure the same steps are taken each time extreme heat arrives.

“There’s not something that is cohesive in our code that says this is going to happen this way every single time,” said Michael Julian Bond, Post 1 at-large.

Bond’s proposed resolution would create a citywide heat safety plan. It calls for more cooling centers, expanded outreach to vulnerable residents and using a health-based measure such as HeatRisk to determine what resources are needed based on conditions.

“The many individuals that don’t have working A/C or don’t have adequate air conditioning — we want to make sure they are able to get relief,” Bond said.

Multiple council members have signed on in support, arguing the city needs to prepare for more frequent and intense heat as the climate warms.

“The weather’s not going to get any cooler with global warming, and so we want to be prepared,” Bond said.