CHARLOTTE — Millions across the Southeast are at risk of heat-related illnesses as temperatures are expected to get up to the triple digitis this week, and young children are especially vulnerable during outdoor activities.
While heat waves have always been a part of summer in the Carolinas, climate change means heat waves like this are more common, more intense and happen more often. According to the climate shift index, the high temperatures we’re seeing this week, are two to three times more likely due to climate change.
This could put millions at risk of heat-related illnesses, especially groups that are particularly vulnerable to heat, older adults, those who work outside, those with cardiovascular or respiratory illnesses and young children.
As the senior director of day camps at the Charlotte YMCA, Ashley Grice said she takes extreme weather, including heat, very seriously in the summer.
“We try to schedule a lot of outdoor time in our morning cooler hours and then as it gets hotter throughout the day and specifically hot weeks throughout the summer, we will schedule more indoor rotations, more rotations in the shade, add in more water breaks, refilling water coolers that we have around site,” she said.
Younger children don’t have the same natural abilities as adults to regulate their body temperatures. Their sweat glands aren’t as developed, younger kids have a higher surface area relative to their mass, so they absorb more heat, they have higher metabolisms and they tend to be less conscious about how much water they drink or whether their bodies are sending them cues to slow down.
Grice said her staff is trained to recognize signs of heat stroke and exhaustion early.
“They can get very red in the face, pink in the face,” she said. “They can be fatigued, sweating profusely.”
They’re trained to respond by getting kids out of the heat, giving them water and calling in extra help if they don’t recover quickly.
Though Grice said everyone at the YMCA is prepared to respond to an emergency, the real goal is preventing things from getting that bad in the first place. Proactively changing the rotation and break schedules to accommodate the weather conditions and ensure kids remember to drink water and reapply sunscreen.
They may choose to move activities to the shade or shift them earlier in the day to ensure kids, especially those in sports camps, are able to play the games and practice the skills they signed up for.
“We try to balance that. We make sure that they do get all the fun activities that they signed up for, all the things that they’re here to do,” she said.
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