If The Heat Doesn't Kill The Elderly, The Library Will!

Back where we come from, there's places known as "cooling centers." These are public buildings that are air-conditioned in the event of a deadly heatwave such as the one in which we currently find ourselves embroiled. We remember our afternoon cartoons being interrupted by ticker-style warnings about the heat and the elderly and cooling centers for those without A/C in the home. Libraries were the foremost among the list of these cooling centers.

Now, you may be thinking of heading to one of Seattle's fine libraries during this week in order to cool off. Not so fast! Because the 11th Floor have little conception of life in the branches, just a little over half of the renovated neighborhood branches are actually air conditioned or cooled in a meaningful way. Heatwave or not, it's not like large numbers of people in an enclosed space plus computers and machinery don't kick out heat. Chances are if it's a Carnegie building, it's sweltering. And they don't close until the internal temperature hits 90 degrees—and that's 305.37 degrees Kelvin fer chrissakes!!!

So before you head out to browse your pornography, check SPL's informative list of cooled libraries. This page contains a link to the City's news advisory listing heat relief tips which are generally pretty good. Whatever you do, don't leave your elders locked in a car or without water for prolonged periods of time.