“Almost none of the indoor climate shelters in Tarragona are operational this weekend of maximum heat (library, civic centers, municipal buildings…). It seems that it can only be hot on weekdays or at most on Saturday mornings”. The tweet, by Gemma Fusté, ERC councilor in Tarragona, in the opposition.
The new interactive map of climate shelters of the Tarragona City Council includes 45 points to protect citizens from the heat, thinking especially of vulnerable people. There are places inside, most of them municipal buildings such as civic centers, the Town Hall itself in Plaça de la Font or the municipal homes for the elderly, and also outside: parks with shade and fountains for drinking or cooling off.
If one wants to protect oneself from the heat indoors, one must pay attention to the schedules. Most are available from Monday to Friday, with the almost sole exception of the bus station, which is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and from Monday to Sunday. When they were presented by the new municipal government (PSC), it was said that climate shelters “involve being open during the day and with the possibility of offering access to drinking water.” No schedules.
It is the case that one of the indoor climate shelters did not have air conditioning, when it was guaranteed in the new protocol “to maintain the temperature at 27ºC” in the indoor shelters. This is the house of the Fundació Bona Nit, in the Part Alta, which mainly shelters the homeless. This point was removed from the map.
“The management of the Fundació Bona Nit did not even know that they had been included in the protocol, and they themselves said that they could not be because they did not have air conditioning,” says Maria Roig, ERC spokesperson at the Tarragona City Council.
On the map the Carmen pension also appears as a refuge, on Cartagena street, but when consulting the schedule: closed from July 31. The municipal Llar de Gent Gran de Pere Martell is also inoperative for holidays this August, according to the map.
ERC, in the opposition, until June in the mayor’s office, has charged against the map of shelters for being an example of “improvisation” and “lack of seriousness”. The Republicans assure that those responsible for the equipment “were not even informed.”
The schedule is another of the handicaps. In the center of the city, the headquarters of the IMET (Municipal Institute of Education of Tarragona), closes every day at three in the afternoon. “They were presented without a methodology, it is serious, they are civil protection measures, it is the safety of the neighbors, with unprecedented heat waves,” warns Roig (ERC). “And on weekends, what do we do? Confusion has been generated. The shelters and their hours were not checked, and the people who work in the shelters do not know how they should act.”
Municipal government sources respond that the Generalitat’s guideline regarding climate shelters does not establish that modifications must be made to the selected public facilities. “It must be done with its own municipal resources, with its normal hours,” explain municipal sources. “It is a technical decision, not a political one, what has been made available is what is available. And they don’t necessarily have to have air conditioning.”
