When giving her State of the City Address, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego called on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to include extreme heat in its declared disasters list.
In a letter to FEMA, Mayor Gallego, according to an official press release: wrote:
“Heat causes more deaths each year than most other natural hazards combined, yet the national emergency planning and response mechanisms lack the same resources that are dedicated to other types of extreme weather events.”
A little less than two months later, Representative and Senate Candidate Ruben Gallego introduced bipartisan legislation in the United States House, called the Extreme Heat Emergency Act, to memorialize that proposal by inserting the words “extreme heat” in the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.
If enacted, disasters caused by extreme heat would become eligible for federal relief and resources.
To justify this need, Representative Gallego’s office, in an official press release, cited a Maricopa County Department of Public Health Report that showed 422 people dying from extreme heat in 2022.
On Friday, both Mayor and Representative Gallego participated in a press event calling for Congress to pass the common sense bipartisan measure.
In an interview with Arizona’s Family, they both offered their rationale for calling for the passage of this legislation.
In the interview, Mayor Gallego relayed:
“Heat is a growing challenge for us. That’s why we have a whole office at the city focused on it. We know we could do even more if the federal government partners with us and that’s why I’ve been calling for several months for heat to be a federally declared disaster. We lose more Americans to heat than most other disasters combined. I’m grateful to Congressman Gallego for introducing that important legislation. It will save Arizonan lives.”
After the Mayor, Representative, and Senate Candidate Gallego, comparing the situation to the current Canadian Wildfires affecting this nation’s northeast coast, offered:
“If 400 people died there (because of the effect of those wildfires,) they would be able to draw those (federal) funds. If 400 people die here from extreme heat, the Mayor will not be able to ask the federal government for any funds and any help…This law is basically to give more parity, more equality so that we can actually have a declared disaster and Mayors like Mayor Gallego could use that money to house people, to fix the situation, and also to not affect the bottom line.”
Later on social media, Mayor Gallego posted:
It’s past time the federal government recognize the danger that extreme heat poses to our communities. That starts by adding it to FEMA’s declared disasters list, which would unlock resources and save lives.⁰⁰Thank you, @RepRubenGallego, for taking up this issue in Congress. pic.twitter.com/jQnK5AeMlu
— Mayor Kate Gallego (@MayorGallego) June 9, 2023
Representative Gallego also posted:
When it gets dangerously hot in Arizona, our leaders should have the ability to call on FEMA to deploy the necessary resources to save lives.
That’s what my Extreme Heat Emergency Act does, and I was proud to introduce it today with @MayorGallego. pic.twitter.com/jOeqkVxV4w
— Ruben Gallego (@RepRubenGallego) June 9, 2023
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.