‘Just not good enough’: Critics blast Atlanta’s extreme heat protections

The city of Atlanta has been roundly praised for fulfilling its duties hosting eight World Cup matches and hundreds of thousands of soccer fans. But for its efforts to protect its own residents from a recent spell of extreme heat, the city is drawing less than rave reviews.

Doctors, homeless services organizations and grassroots groups all told a City Council committee this week that Atlanta’s response to a heatwave that scorched the city around the Fourth of July was woefully inadequate.

In response, the City Council’s Community Development and Human Services Committee advanced a resolution Tuesday that directs city departments to create a heat safety plan and take other steps to protect residents from rising temperatures. The measure will now head to the full council for a vote, possibly as soon as Aug. 3.

“We ask that Atlanta do better and not just check the box on having a cooling center available,” Sarah Zimbardi, an advocacy coordinator with the homeless services nonprofit Central Outreach and Advocacy Center, told the City Council this week.

A Congo fan tries to shielf herself from the sun with a paper fan while at the FIFA Fan Fest in Centennial Park on July 1, 2026. (Estela Muñoz/AJC)

A potent combination of heat and humidity pushed “feels-like” temperatures in the city into the high 90s and low triple digits for more than a week starting in late June. Even the overnight hours offered little relief, with lows dipping into only the mid- or high 70s most nights, according to National Weather Service data.

Exposure to that kind of around-the-clock heat is uncomfortable for anyone, but it’s especially dangerous for people experiencing homelessness and residents without access to air conditioning. Without a chance to cool down, the body’s built-in cooling mechanisms can quickly become overwhelmed, increasing the risk of heat-related illness.

During the heat wave, Atlanta’s fire stations offered water to residents, and starting June 29, the city had one cooling center open, 6-11 p.m. at Selena S. Butler Park in Old Fourth Ward. But that cooling facility was shuttered July 3 because of staffing shortages and remained closed on the Fourth of July. City pools also shut down for the holiday, the resolution says.

Meanwhile, daytime temperatures that weekend reached well into the 90s.

Michael Smith, a spokesperson for Mayor Andre Dickens, said the city is updating its operating protocol and response to extreme heat. Smith said based on community feedback, the city has decided to “expand and improve services.”

“We look forward to sharing those findings and updated plans with City Council and the public in the very near future,” Smith said.

The Fulton County Board of Health, which also assists with emergency response and preparedness across the city, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A patchwork operation

Heatwaves are already one of the country’s deadliest extreme weather events, leading to an estimated 1,200 deaths each year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the impact is deeply uneven.

Homeless people are 30 times more likely to need aid for health issues caused by extreme heat, and those costs eventually trickle down to taxpayers, said Matt Woodruff, a co-founder of Stand, a volunteer community aid organization.

Several people who spoke to the City Council this week said the city’s actions during the heat were inadequate, especially to protect the most vulnerable populations. They described a patchwork, volunteer-led operation to try to keep residents safe.

Woodruff, who is also an assistant professor at Emory School of Medicine, told council members Tuesday he and other volunteers spent July Fourth weekend handing out 1,500 bottles of water to homeless people around Atlanta, Decatur and Cobb County. Others said they doled out hundreds of pounds of ice from coolers to desperate residents.

Woodruff said his volunteers also passed out lists of heat-related resources, something he said should be the city’s job.

“We were making up (lists) on the fly. That shouldn’t be,” he said.

Thousands ran in the heat and humidity to participate in the Peachtree Road Race on July 4th. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)

The resolution advanced Tuesday was proposed by Councilmember Kelsea Bond and was passed unanimously by all committee members who were present.

On top of calling for the mayor to lead the development of a comprehensive heat safety plan, the measure urges the city to expand its cooling center offerings and establish an alert system for extreme heat situations.

“There’s a big gap between our ability as a city to notify people about extreme weather conditions and the resources that do exist,” Bond said Tuesday.

It also asks the city to explore using a new, “health-based” metric to determine when its heat response is triggered.

Right now, the city uses a complicated decision tree to decide when to open its cooling centers. The facilities open only if either a heat index of 95 degrees or higher is forecast for at least five hours on two or more straight days, or if the National Weather Service issues a heat advisory for a period longer than five hours. The mayor or the city’s chief operating officer also have the power to order cooling centers to open.

Zimbardi told the City Council the current cooling center protocols are “just not good enough.”

‘Prioritizing people’

Extreme heat has already become more common and intense around the globe because of climate change, but the problem is expected to worsen.

The most recent National Climate Assessment, released by the federal government in 2023, warned that most of Georgia will likely see between 10 and 40 more days with temperatures of at least 95 degrees by midcentury.

That demands the city take a more holistic approach to the heat, said Anna Wille, a volunteer with Cool Atlanta, a coalition of community members that formed specifically to help residents when Atlanta was under a heat advisory.