Via PBS SoCalMatters

As climate change drives dangerous heatwaves, California’s inland communities like Lancaster, Palmdale, and Fresno are experiencing more high-heat days, putting thousands at risk for heat-related illnesses. A recent report shows these cities, popular for affordable housing, are unprepared for rising temperatures. By 2050, they could see over 25 extreme heat days annually, up from single digits. Read the full story.

Video Transcript

In California, inland communities with big population booms will experience the most high heat days under climate change projections. The combination puts more people at risk of heat-related illnesses, and many cities are unprepared. Extreme heat contributed to more than 5,000 hospitalizations over the past decade, and the health effects fall disproportionately on Black people, Latinos, and Native Americans, according to a recent state report.

Low- and middle-income Californians looking to expand their families are moving inland in search of affordable housing and more space, but the move inland comes at a price: dangerous heat driven by climate change, accompanied by sky-high electric bills.

CalMatters identified the communities most at risk of extreme heat combined with growing populations. The results? Lancaster and Palmdale in LA County; Apple Valley, Victorville, and Hesperia in San Bernardino County; Lake Elsinore and Murrieta in Riverside County; and the Central Valley cities of Visalia, Fresno, Clovis, and Tulare.

By 2050, neighborhoods in those 11 inland cities are expected to experience 25 or more high heat days every year. Death Valley, the hottest place on Earth, reached record temperatures in July, averaging 108.5 degrees, with a high of 121.9, tying a 1917 record. In comparison, Palmdale, by 2050, is projected to have 25 days where the maximum temperature exceeds 105, up from nine days in the 2010s.

A 2015 state law required municipalities to update their general plans, safety plans, or hazard mitigation plans to include steps considering the effects of climate change, but only about half of the California’s 540 cities and counties have complied with the new plans as of last year.

With CalMatters, I’m Alejandra Reyes-Velarde.