Seattle weather turned dangerously hot on Sunday and Monday, and Sergio's Service Center stayed open on days it is usually closed so people living outdoors had air-conditioned shelter. Samuel Bubenzer said the center kept its doors open after 7 p.m. and offered water, food and a place to get out of the heat.
“It's been a longstanding core tenet of our homeless services program to do everything we can for this community when hazardous weather arises in Olympia,” Bubenzer said. He also said, “We offer water, Gatorade, popsicles, things like that, but, first and foremost, it's really just a spot to sit inside as a reprieve from the dangerously hot weather.”
Olympia records on Sunday and Monday
Temperatures around the Puget Sound region rose as much as 23 degrees above normal. Olympia hit 92 on Sunday and 93 on Monday, breaking both days' previous records of 88 degrees. The normal high for June 15 and June 16 in Olympia is 70 degrees, and parts of Olympia reached 97 degrees on Monday.
Local officials and nonprofits opened cooling centers from Seattle to Olympia during the heat wave. Olympia Mutual Aid Partners went into homeless camps in downtown Olympia and The Jungle with bottled water, snacks, misters and cooling cloths. The Family Support Center of South Sound opened its air-conditioned space for families to rest, recharge phones or get a snack.
Family Support Center of South Sound
Trish Hefton said by email, “We exhausted our cold and hazardous weather event funding during the cold weather months so we are not adding any additional services during this high heat period.” That left the group able to welcome families indoors, but not to do emergency outreach to people living outdoors. The funding split meant the cooling response was not the same everywhere, even as the heat covered Western Washington.
University of Washington Medical Center said its emergency departments had not seen an uptick in heat-related illnesses. The 2021 heat dome killed an estimated 1,200 people in British Columbia, Oregon and Washington, and another 2,000 people crowded emergency rooms in Washington after suffering heat strokes or other harm. Researchers in Portland documented surface temperatures of 163 degrees on tents and 195 degrees on pavement during that stretch, a reminder of how quickly outdoor conditions can become dangerous for people without shade or air conditioning.
For people still outside in Olympia and across Western Washington, the practical answer was immediate: find an air-conditioned space, take water and supplies when offered, and use the help that was open on Sunday and Monday. The next gap is not the weather warning itself, but how many people actually reached those cooling centers and outreach teams.
