Rising temperatures in Durham leave many behind – North Carolina Health News

By Will Atwater (North Carolina Health News) and Melba Newsome (Climate Central)

This story was created through a collaboration between North Carolina Health News and Central climate. Jennifer Brady, Climate Central scientist, contributed data reporting.

Patricia Murray sat in her home office near the end of a weeklong heat wave, the third of the year with temperatures above 90 degrees, describing how she’s been keeping cool without air conditioning even as Durham summers grow hotter.

“When I know I’m going out in the afternoon, I’ll sneak out [a towel] and put it around my neck,” said the brisk 68-year-old, who also uses box fans and ceiling fans to push a cooling breeze into her home. “I suggest if you don’t have air conditioning, this is a lifesaver – you should have a ceiling fan.”

As heat-trapping pollution raises temperatures globally and concrete and hard roofs amplify heat in Durham and other cities, Murray’s strategies provide a snapshot of what it might take to survive for people living on fixed incomes and they can’t afford cooling.

Such urban heat islands occur in cities and describe conditions where asphalt, concrete and other materials used to pave streets, parking lots and sidewalks and to erect buildings contribute to higher temperatures by absorbing the sun’s heat before released into the atmosphere.

Temperatures in the Murray block could be 6 to 7 degrees higher than those in a less developed rural environment, Climate Central modeling shows. Other parts of the city are even hotter. Around 1,700 Durham residents live in areas with temperatures rising by at least 9 degrees. In Charlotte, home to more than 900,000 people, about 6,000 people live with these extreme levels of urban heat.

These heat islands are a particular problem for people of color, according to a study published in Nature in 2021. Researchers found that, on average, people of color live in census tracts with higher summer “daytime urban heat island intensity” than white people .

This was the case in 96 percent of the 175 largest urbanized areas in the continental US

These same authors found that people living in poverty were the most likely to live in these extremely hot areas.

“Before I got Social Security, I went through some pretty tough financial times,” Murray said. “My water and electricity were cut off and I had to rely on solar lights.”

Murray arrived in Durham more than 20 years ago to care for his aunt, whose health was failing. Her current home once had air conditioning, but when the system broke, Murray decided not to repair it.

Average summer temperatures in Durham have risen by an average of 1 degree since then, the analysis of weather station data shows. This rise is part of a long-term warming trend caused by atmospheric pollution, which raises the cost of cooling homes and other buildings. Since 1970, expected demand for air conditioners in Durham has increased more than 40 percent, an analysis of weather data shows.

On a Thursday in late August when North Carolina Health News visited Murray at her home, the temperature in Durham reached nearly 95 degrees, nine degrees warmer than the historical average. Climate Central’s Climate Change Index shows that an uncomfortable average temperature that day has become at least four times more likely due to climate change.

“We know our summers are hot, and they’ve always been hot,” said Kathy Dello, state climatologist and director of the North Carolina State Climate Service. “But this is not the warmth of our parents. […] It’s a new kind of heat, and it’s merciless.”

Heat extremes describe temperatures that exceed historical averages for an area. Rising temperatures are also worsening humidity in places like Durham, exacerbating health risks.

Each year, more than 1,200 Americans die from extreme heat, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Globally, between 2000 and 2019, approximately 489,000 people died annually from heat-related causes, according to data provided by the World Health Organization.

Delo said there was a time when North Carolinians could take a break from the heat of the day after the sun went down, but even that is changing. In the 1970s, the Raleigh-Durham area averaged only one case per year when both the days and nights were too hot. But data from Climate Central shows that the weather now stays hot all day and all night an average of eight days each year.

Dello said that’s really evident in nighttime temperatures.

“So much of our Southern life is kind of based on, ‘Okay, okay, it’s a really hot day, but it’s going to cool down overnight. We’ll turn on the fans and open the windows. That just doesn’t happen anymore.”

Failure to cool down after a long hot day can lead to potentially fatal heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Exposure to extreme heat can also contribute to other adverse health conditions, including heart attacks and strokes. Older adults, young children, the mentally ill and people with chronic illnesses are among those most affected by extreme heat, according to the CDC.

Elevation zero

Murray’s modest one-story home is about two miles southeast of Haiti, Durham’s historically black community.

It’s been more than five decades since the urban renewal movement swept across the country, displacing businesses and homes in predominantly black communities. Created by the Housing Act of 1949, the program’s goal was to provide standardized housing in low-income black neighborhoods across the country.

However, from the 1950s to the 1970s, homes and significant community landmarks, including churches and businesses, were destroyed or moved to make way for highway projects.

This was the case in the Hayti community in Durham.

In the 1970s, the Durham Freeway/Highway 147 was built to connect downtown Durham to Research Triangle Park. The highway cut through Haiti, replacing houses and public landmarks with miles of concrete and asphalt and limited green spaces with shade.

Haiti is now considered an urban heat island due to the scarcity of trees that are needed to moderate temperatures. There is also an abundance of asphalt and concrete surfaces that absorb heat during the day and release it at night. This process prevents some parts of the city from cooling down after sunset.

The average temperature on a hot day in an urban area can be 1 to 7 degrees warmer during the day than in rural areas. After sunset, heat absorbed by sidewalks, concrete and brick is released through transpiration, raising nighttime temperatures between 2 and 5 degrees, according to the CDC.

Max Cowley, a climate researcher at the Durham Museum of Life and Science, described what happens when urban communities have more impervious surfaces than treetops.

“Sometimes people living just blocks away from each other experience different levels of heat depending on the built environment around them,” Cowley said in a radio interview. He added: “Our communities didn’t come together on their own, they were based on decisions that people made in the past.”

Very often in the southeastern states, these systems turn out to be exclusionary.

“Because of the way we plan our communities today, some people who live in areas with very impervious, hard and dark surfaces experience more heat and are exposed to more danger and risk,” Cowley said.

He noted that these communities “are more vulnerable to this heat than people who live, for example, in communities that are planned to have more shade trees, more green spaces and more infrastructure. [Which] today it acts as a kind of service and protects them during very hot weather.”

Angela Lee is the executive director of the Hayti Heritage Center, a local arts and culture cornerstone. She reflects on how the community is still recovering from the changes caused by the freeway.

“When you drive down Fayetteville Street, especially the corridor where we are […] This is a street that was created by 147 and did not exist before [highway] came,” Lee said. “The back of our building, now called Old Stable Street, was the main street. It was full of trees and bushes and it was beautiful. There wasn’t that wide street where people drive too fast and it’s not safe.

Phoenix Crossing Mall is a shopping center across the street from the historic center. The large asphalt parking lot of the shopping center has space for nearly 150 cars. Decorative crepe myrtles planted in grassy environments look like little green islands floating in a black sea. On a particular day in August, when the temperature reached the mid-90s, the trees offered no relief from the heat.

About a 10-minute walk south of the Hayti Heritage Center and Phoenix Crossing Shopping Center is the Lincoln Community Health Center. The one-story medical facility, which has served low-income residents since the 1970s, has a treeless 2.6-acre asphalt parking lot.

“Everybody knows that yes, when the Haitian community was broken up because of the highway, a lot of structures were destroyed — homes and businesses and several thousand people were displaced,” Lee said. “But what you haven’t heard much about [is] environmental impact.”

She added: “When that’s the case [hot]and you don’t have nice shaded paths or access to shaded sidewalks or even stops where you can grab something cool to drink, you’re not encouraged to be outdoors. You don’t want to move; your kids don’t want to move. This also leads to differences in health because you are not active, [or] live active, healthy lives in your communities.”

Mitigation of impacts

Cowley is involved in a national heat monitoring project with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and has conducted heat research in Durham. He points out that living in an urban heat zone can be expensive.

“We know heat has huge and inequitable health impacts, but it also hits Americans’ budgets disproportionately,” Cowley said. “People who live in heat islands tend to pay a higher percentage of their wages to cool their homes. If they are unable, then they are at greater risk, especially at night.

A national analysis by Noah Kittner, assistant professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill, found that 16 percent of American households live in energy poverty: They spend more than 6 percent of their household income on energy bills.

They may have to choose between heating and air conditioning or paying for other basic expenses.

In addition to ongoing tree-planting efforts, Durham is trying to reduce the energy burden that is a barrier for low-wealth residents who don’t have air conditioning — or can’t afford to run it. Through possible federal grants, the city is exploring ways to outfit the homes of low-income residents with solar panels that could reduce the cost of running an air conditioner.

It’s an idea Murray supports.

“I would skip all that if they [offered solar] for lower income people,” she said. “I would because I have the perfect roof for it.”