Even the trains are moving more slowly today — the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority warned riders this morning that trains might run at a reduced speed to avoid any heat-related stress on the tracks.
The day started hot: Just before 9 a.m. Tuesday, the temperature in Chinatown was already pushing 90 degrees. Pablo Rodriguez Andrade, 44, wore a dark long-sleeved shirt and pants — his greenway sanitation uniform not exactly summer wear.
Rodriguez Andrade crouched down toward the asphalt with his handheld trash grabber and snagged a few pieces of paper and candy wrappers. For his litter-pick-up job at the Rose Kennedy Greenway, he’d be under the sun for the next eight hours.
How is he feeling about the weather?
“Oh my god, horrible,” Rodriguez Andrade said, shaking his head with a laugh.
With a crushing heat dome blanketing much of the northeast this week, the city declared a heat emergency Sunday, warning residents of the dangerous conditions.
Climate change has made heat waves hotter and longer, and these weather events are only expected to get more extreme in the future. By the middle of this century, heat index values over 100 degrees are projected to be three times more common in the Northeastern U.S. than they are now, if the planet does not quickly halt the burning of fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change.
This week’s heat dome is expected to keep the city dangerously hot through Wednesday. Heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the US, according to National Weather Service data, and experts say the elderly and those who work outdoors are particularly vulnerable. Symptoms of heat illness include headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and hot skin.
Rodriguez Andrade’s boss told him he could take 10 to 15 minutes longer during his breaks today. Otherwise, it was business as usual.
A half an hour later and a few blocks away, Bryan Clifford, 45, too, was all business. On Boylston Street at the St. Francis House, he was unpacking more than 1,000 boxes of paper goods and cleaning products from his delivery truck. It still wasn’t yet 10 am, and already, the temperature had reached 91 degrees.
His face almost the shade of his red shirt, Clifford lifted the large brown boxes from the back of his delivery truck with a smile. He said he’d battle through it, armed with six ice-cold frozen water bottles that he’d thrown in the freezer the night before.
“Honestly, I just look at it as any other day,” said Clifford, an independent contractor whose delivery business, Cliffy Enterprises, would take him all across the city today. “I’m making money.”
At about 10:15 am, across the river in Cambridge, Billy Meyers, 52, stood down the block from his temporary apartment building. He was sweaty and holding a stack of newspapers in hand.
“I couldn’t be in there right now,” Meyers said of his room at the Central House, a men’s affordable housing complex. “It’s hotter in there than it is out here.”
He doesn’t have an air conditioning unit in the room.
So, instead of sweltering inside, he grabbed a stack of Spare Change Newspapers to sell. The street paper written by and for unhoused and low-income people was founded in 1992. He sells them for $2 a piece.
Meyers was hoping to make at least $30 so that he could duck inside a nearby convenience store to escape the heat.
“Once I get enough money, I just go inside and sit down for a while,” he said.
In Massachusetts, landlords are required by law to heat living spaces above 68 degrees during the day and 64 degrees at night. But there’s no similar regulation for keeping apartments cool during extreme heat. Landlords are also not required to provide air conditioning.
“Definitely I think there are some regulations missing,” said Patricia Fabián, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health at Boston University who has studied heat and public health.
“Anybody who either doesn’t have air conditioning or can’t afford to pay for air conditioning [is at risk],” Fabián said.
Another concern is whether the air conditioning people have is working: Extreme heat can strain the electric grid as residents and businesses crank up their air conditioners. When very high demand nears outstripping the supply of electricity, grid operators implement brownouts to avoid overloading the system.
Around 11:30 am Tuesday, there was more demand on New England’s electric grid operator than typical, but the system was largely operating smoothly, and no brownouts had been reported.
In East Boston around 11 a.m., Andres Betancur, 35, stood on a shaded corner in Maverick Square. Although the temperature by that time was approaching 100 degrees, it still felt like a reprieve from his hot apartment down the street, which does not have air conditioning.
“The heat is unbearable,” he said. To manage, he takes cold showers at home.
Because he works in demolition, the only way to stay cool on the job is to step into whatever cool, air-conditioned stores are nearby during his breaks.
Check back for updates.
Erin Douglas can be reached at erin.douglas@globe.com. Follow her @erinmdouglas23. Ava Berger can be reached at ava.berger@globe.com. Follow her @Ava_Berger_. Jade Lozada can be reached at jade.lozada@globe.com. Nathan Metcalf can be reached at nathan.metcalf@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @natpat_123. Sabrina Shankman can be reached at sabrina.shankman@globe.com.
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