Miami-Dade mayor wants to talk about heat

MIAMI – Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava wants to talk about heat — but not The Miami Heat’s upcoming basketball game. She wants to talk about life-threatening temperatures.

Levine Cava is holding a press conference at the Stephen P. Clark Center in Miami to announce the area’s “Second Annual Official Heat Season.”

Miami-Dade County’s heat season was announced for the first time in 2022 and goes from May 1 until Oct, 31 each year. The season is part of Miami-Dade County’s first-ever Extreme Heat Action Plan presented by Mayor Levine Cava in 2022 and led by Miami-Dade County’s first Chief Heat Officer Jane Gilbert.

Expected to speak in addition to Levine Cava and Gilbert are Pete Gomez, Miami-Dade County director of emergency management, Robert Molleda, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, Miami South Florida Forecast Office, and Oliver Gilbert, Miami Dade County Commissioners board chairman.

The action plan, unveiled in 2022, was devised by the county’s regulator and economic resources department with attention on economic and health risks associated with South Florida’s summers getting hotter and longer due to climate change and urban development, according to the plan.

The plan is organized around three goals:

Inform, Prepare, and Protect People: Foster healthy and resilient communities by bolstering outreach and education efforts, improving extreme heat warning systems and emergency protocols, protecting outdoor workers and building the capacity of healthcare practitioners to identify and respond to heat vulnerability and illness in their patients.

Cool Homes and Emergency Facilities: Improve access to efficient and reliable cooling in homes and to a place to cool off in the event of a power outage.

Cool Neighborhoods: Reduce the excessive heat burden in urban areas by expanding the tree canopy and vegetation, improving access to water features and shade structures, and cooling our surfaces.

See the plan.