Hwaseong City Establishes Comprehensive Heat Wave Response Plan for Summer

[Suwon Ilbo = Reporter Jung Joon-sung] Hwaseong City has designated the period through September 30 as the heat wave response period and established a comprehensive response plan for summer.

The city accordingly established a joint task force composed of eight divisions: Overall Situation Coordination, Elderly Protection Measures, Health Management Support, Medical System, Worker Measures, and Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries Measures, and has begun full-scale operations.

The most notable aspect this year is the expansion of the shade canopy project. The city plans to secure approximately 900 shade canopies for crosswalks on sidewalks 3 meters or wider within the city.

Additionally, the city is expanding operations of cooling centers, which had been operating on a reduced scale to prevent COVID-19 spread. The city has designated a total of 732 cooling centers and plans to resume operations based on the stabilization of COVID-19 spread and vaccination rates.

The city is allocating 81 million won in budget to provide cooling mats and cooling pillows to heat wave vulnerable groups who have difficulty accessing indoor and outdoor cooling centers.

Also in preparation are surveillance and damage prevention publicity for heat wave vulnerable areas such as farmland and outdoor work sites, operation of street water spraying vehicles to prevent urban heat island effects, supply of immune boosters to poultry farms, and operation of home health management services for vulnerable groups.

In particular, this year the city is implementing a heat map construction project using drones equipped with thermal imaging sensors, which will be utilized for supporting heat wave vulnerable groups and establishing related policies.