Tampa leaders now have a guide for responding to high temperatures, which have reached dangerous levels in recent years.
In 2022, Tampa experienced 89 days with the heat index exceeding 100 degrees.
The city's sustainability and resilience officer, Whit Remer, said they analyzed Tampa on a street-to-street basis.
“How can we provide those shady spots? How can we provide that hydration opportunity, safe basis for people to retreat and recover?” he said.
And so they came up with the heat playbook, which Remer said can be used by officials and residents.
"Not only for our city departments to look at new policies and interventions as they're building infrastructure across the community,” he said.
“But we actually added an entire element to the playbook that's intended just for homeowners and renters to understand the steps that they can take to reduce their electric bills and prove their resiliency against heat.”
Partnering with University of South Florida and Resilient Cities Catalyst, Tampa officials made some interesting discoveries while studying neighborhoods vulnerable to heat impacts.
For instance, the heat more severely impacts low-income residents and people with preexisting conditions.
They learned people in East Tampa are disproportionately affected due to redlining maps, starting in 1936. Redlining is a discriminatory practice, which denies people access to credit because of where they live.
Homes in East Tampa are older with poor insulation, meaning inadequate cooling, and the residents live further from green spaces that provide refuge from the heat.
"There was a large advocacy group around the 22nd Street area of East Tampa that was focused on gardening initially, but really started to realize that heat and gardening and these cool places to find, retreat, and reprieve are really, really important," Remer said.
More than 200 residents shared their stories for the heat playbook.
As a partial solution to the heat-related problems, Tampa is asking that the federal government grant it between $15 million and $20 million to focus on creating a cool and connected corridor for pedestrians and cyclists.
The money would come from the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program within the Inflation Reduction Act, and be distributed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA is accepting applications through November and Remer said Tampa is hoping to apply soon.
