New Haven residents are taking the necessary precautions and limiting their time outside in the oppressive heat and humidity, Deputy Director of Emergency Operations Rick Fontana said.
Still, the extreme weather is taking a toll on people with pre-existing medical conditions like asthma.
“I don’t recall seeing the weather this bad,” Fontana said about a week where New Haven has felt more like summertime in Florida.
With the heat index rising into the triple digits New Haven’s Emergency Operations Center fielded 18 difficulty breathing calls between Saturday morning and Sunday night, Fontana said.
“We saw a lot of people over the last week or so who were here for their asthma which was a little bit worse than normal because it was so difficult for them to breath in this kind of humidity more so than the heat,” said Dr. Andy Ulrich, operations director at Yale-New Haven Hospital’s Emergency Department.
There has also been an uptick of patients struggling to stay hydrated, Ulrich said.
“By the fourth, fifth, sixth day in this kind of heat it gets really tough,” he said, “so we’ve got a little more volume the past couple of days.”
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On Sunday, some patients had to be diverted to other emergency rooms.
“Sometimes, we have to sort of spread the volume out between our facilities,” Ulrich said. “So that not directly related to the heat, it was just a high volume day.”
While the hospital was busy over the weekend, so too were the city’s pools, splash pads and libraries designated as cooling centers.
“They were quite packed,” Fontana said. “Our senior centers, we saw more there than we have seen but again I think they heeded our advice.”
Even as the humidity drops and conditions gradually improve this week, Ulrich said it is important to check on elderly family members and neighbors who “can get into trouble quickly.”
Before grabbing a cold beer from the fridge, Ulrich said to remember too much alcohol in the heat can increase the risk of dehydration.
