Vanessa Tyler: I'm Vanessa Tyler from the Black Information Network, your home for Black News First. We are now in Code Red. The heat is so serious, Mayor Mamdani wants to warn every New Yorker to take precaution. Mayor Mamdani joins me with more. Mayor, welcome back.
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Thank you so much for having me, Vanessa. It's a pleasure.
Tyler: You have declared a heat emergency from now throughout the entire holiday weekend. What are the plans?
Mayor Mamdani: You know, we want New Yorkers to know that we are looking at an extreme heat wave. We have not seen temperatures like this since more than a decade. We're talking about high 90s and then going to the triple digits through the Fourth of July weekend. And with humidity, this may feel like it's up to 112 degrees. So, from the city, we are doing everything we can. We are opening more than 200 cooling centers across the five boroughs. That ranges from the Javits Center to older adult centers to a number of libraries. And we're going to be putting up directions to the closest center near you on hundreds of LinkNYC kiosks across the five boroughs.
New Yorkers can also go to nyc.gov/beattheheat or call 311 to find out the closest center to them. In addition, for the first time in city history, we're going to be dispatching city workers to check in on seniors that anyone are concerned about and to see if they need any assistance with this temperature, given what the impacts of this heat often have been. We're also extending the hours for New York City public swimming pools to 8:30 p.m. to ensure that it's as easy as possible for people to stay cool over the next few days.
Tyler: You're also advising New Yorkers to have a heat plan and you're appealing to employers.
Mayor Mamdani: Absolutely, you know there will be many New Yorkers for whom these next few days, they'll just be going about their days or they'll be looking to celebrate our nation's 250th anniversary. There are others, however, who will be working in this heat. So, we've reached out to more than 70,000 businesses to encourage them to create heat plans for their employees, to remind them that employees can take time off for heat-related symptoms or concerns and that for delivery workers, that they do have the right to use the bathroom at any restaurant they are picking up or delivering from.
Tyler: We remember the other extreme. The winter was deadly. Dozens died due to the cold and now we're looking at the heat wave. That could be deadly as well.
Mayor Mamdani: It is a reality that we've seen in our city all too many times. On an annual basis, our city estimates that we lose 500 New Yorkers to heat-related symptoms. And we want to do everything in our power to ensure that we are informing New Yorkers of the scale of this crisis and taking every action possible to respond and prevent the worst impacts of that crisis.
Tyler: Mayor Mamdani advising New Yorkers to have their heat plans. It's going to be brutal.
