HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Tampa city leaders are set to discuss ways to reduce the city's heat risk, which is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States.
This impacts your family, friends, pets, plants and even your A/C bill. Officials are working to come up with solutions and create cooling corridors throughout the city.
In the meantime, city leaders created a heat resilience playbook to address the issues. It touches on four key points: lowering the heat risk, increasing access to cool spaces, maximizing the benefit of our tree canopy and adapting our built environment to the impacts of extreme heat.
That may look like planting more trees, building shade and shelter, adding hydration stations, misters, cooling tents and splash pads.
“Trees is the most obvious one, it has the most co-benefits, but planting trees in a city is hard and expensive. We have to get creative," said Whit Remer, Tampa's Sustainability & Resilience Officer.
Remer said they also want to ensure the cooling corridors are available in areas where the most vulnerable populations live. He explained they would also work with H.A.R.T. to provide bus stops with shade.
Remer thinks all of this will help reduce the risk of heat in the area and create a safer environment.
There's a workshop on Thursday morning to discuss these measures with city council.
Funding is available through the Environmental Protection Agency, which would help pay the city for these cooling corridors.
The city will work on putting together a grant application to get a chunk of the money.
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