This is one of many articles in the Mercury’s 2026 Climate Issue. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you’re feeling generous and want to keep these types of articles coming, support us here.—eds.
Five years ago, Multnomah County got a tragic wakeup call. A prolonged spell of extremely hot days claimed the lives of 69 people. The 2021 heat dome was, for many, the first major heat event that drove home an uncomfortable reality: Oregon’s summers might no longer be bearable without air conditioning.
“I think, fundamentally, we’re seeing a shift here in summers,” says Chris Voss, Multnomah County’s director of emergency management, referring to the impacts of climate change. “Multnomah County was once a county where air conditioning was a ‘nice to have,’ and I think we’re seeing, especially for some vulnerable communities, that it’s a ‘need to have’ now.”
In all, 72 people died that summer due to extreme temperatures, during two heat waves.
The Portland area has seen excessive heat warnings each summer since then. This year, the region saw the first dangerous heat hit in mid-June, before the official start of summer.
Summers with spates of excessively hot days are the new norm in the Portland area. Since the deadly 2021 heat wave, 14 people have died from heat-related illness in Multnomah County: five people in 2022; three people in 2023; four the following year, and two last summer.
Over the past five years, government leaders have responded with a mix of emergency resources, proposed legislative fixes, and in the county’s case, a major lawsuit. In 2023, Multnomah County took an unconventional route by suing major fossil fuel companies for their role in contributing to climate change that caused the 2021 excessive heat wave. The lawsuit is still active.
“When it got up to 116 degrees, that was a huge impetus to [evaluate] how we think about heat,” says Dr. Richard Bruno, Multnomah County’s health officer.
Who’s most at risk?
Data from 2021 shows the majority of people who died due to heat that summer lacked functional air conditioning in their homes. The county’s mortality investigations noted about 10 people who died had AC, but most of their units weren’t working properly or had been left unplugged. Others reported being afraid to use their air conditioning units due to electricity costs. Most of the people who died lived alone in an apartment.
“I think there’s a misconception that it’s people who are unhoused who are most susceptible, and that’s not true,” says Sarah Dean, a communications coordinator with Multnomah County’s health department.
Dr. Bruno said he noticed something else in the retrospective of the 2021 deadly heat dome fatalities.
“We noticed that men over 50 who live alone tend to be overrepresented in that data,” he noted. “Part of our messaging, too, is check on your neighbor, check on your uncle, bring them some water, bring them some electrolytes….”
At the local level, Multnomah County has opened emergency cooling centers during excessive heat waves. The centers—sometimes empty church buildings or community centers—offer an air-conditioned, pet-friendly space to rest, get a snack, and get respite from the heat, particularly for those without air conditioning who are most at-risk of suffering from heat-related illness. They’ve proven helpful. The county reported 611 people visited three cooling centers during a July heat wave in 2024. The following year, two separate heat waves in August drew a total of 532 people to four sites.
The county relies on a heat risk index developed by the National Weather Service to determine whether the threat is high enough to open emergency cooling shelters, which often take several resources to coordinate and sometimes require pulling county staff from their primary jobs to help staff the centers. Currently, unless the threat is extreme, it’s unlikely the county will activate them.
“There’s 60 locations open before we ever get to cooling centers, so it’s one of the last things we do with the highest threshold,” Voss, the emergency management director, explains. County officials note cooling centers, which are typically limited to a few sites, are in addition to traditional places like community centers, shopping malls, museums, and movie theaters, which are more readily available.
Those sites, however, don’t always accommodate unhoused people, who are at a higher risk of illness from extreme heat.
The county’s list of cooling sites also includes misting stations, fountains, pools, and parks with splash pads, though public health officials advise against spending prolonged periods of time outdoors during excessive heat waves. County officials say libraries, which can draw thousands of visitors during a heat wave, are often the most effective public locations for cooling off.
State lawmakers look to legislative fixes
While the nation was still recovering from the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, county and state government agencies got some relief in the form of a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package called the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Local government agencies were able to use ARPA funding for a variety of things, including housing and homelessness solutions, and climate resilience measures like installing cooling systems in homes without air conditioning.
“There was a lot of ARPA money we used to buy heat pumps out in East Portland,” says Dean, the health department spokesperson. Heat pumps are highly efficient electric units that provide both heating and cooling. But ARPA only provided one-time, limited funding, and funds have since dried up.
Oregon State Senator Khanh Pham, who represents Senate District 23 covering outer Southeast and Northeast Portland, sought a more permanent solution with Senate Bill 54. The bill would’ve required landlords of multi-family properties with 10 or more units to provide air conditioning in all units by 2036.
“With the increasing frequency of extreme heat events due to climate change, the necessity for cooling solutions in residential housing has never been more critical,” Carolina Gomez wrote to the Senate Committee on Housing and Development on behalf of Home Forward, in support of the bill. “Cooling should not be a privilege, but a right, particularly for vulnerable populations such as seniors, individuals with disabilities, and families living in affordable housing.”
Despite support from tenants rights groups, supportive housing organizations, and others, it ultimately died in committee. Still, other legislative efforts are underway to shield Oregonians from rising electric utility costs and equip more housing units with air conditioning.
Ultimately, experts say the best defense against future fatalities is getting people to treat extreme heat events the same way they would other weather emergencies, and make a plan for their own safety.
“You saw this during Hurricane Katrina, where a lot of people just stayed in their homes and thought, ‘Well, I’ve been through three hurricanes,’” Voss recalls. “Each of those, what it taught them was, ‘I can stay and be safe’ until the one you can’t.”
