Multnomah County Health Department

In the Summer of 2021, Multnomah County experienced a heat dome that killed 75 people and caused 258 individuals to seek medical care in emergency rooms and urgent care facilities. Since 2021, heat-related fatalities have remained elevated above the pre-2021 baseline, with zero deaths occurring in the prior five years. Medical visits for illness and injury also remain elevated from 2021 onwards. 

Many of the more easily implementable short-term solutions have already been implemented in Portland, and the HHC team is looking to plan for deeper changes to physical infrastructure to limit the extent to which the built environment amplifies ground-level temperature during extreme heat events. Further, this project from HHC calls for building relationships to improve adaptive capacity during extreme heat.

Meet the Project Team - Doug Fir Partners