San Antonio unveils heat resilience playbook work and Cool Neighborhoods implementation update

City resilience and emergency-management staff told the City Council on Wednesday that San Antonio is advancing a citywide Heat Resilience Playbook and rolling out targeted neighborhood interventions to reduce temperatures and protect vulnerable residents.

Deputy Fire Chief Brian O'Neil, the city’s Emergency Management Coordinator, described a new heat-information hub on sa.gov/backslashhotweather that centralizes tips, an interactive map of “places to stay cool,” and a heat-illness dashboard that tracks heat-related illnesses in the community since 2022. “It’s a 1 stop hub for our residents to go and look and find resources, anything and everything having to do with heat,” O’Neil said.

Laura Patino, the city’s Chief Resilience Officer, described the San Antonio Heat Resilience Playbook in development. Patino said the playbook is intended as a guide for mayor and council that inventories existing actions, identifies gaps relative to national and peer-city best practices, and recommends implementation steps. Patino said the city used a gap analysis comparing local efforts to the White House Extreme Heat Call to Action, C40 urban cooling guidance and peer cities, and that San Antonio is already advancing roughly…