PROVIDENCE — One afternoon at the height of the recent heat wave, the official temperature in Providence was 93 degrees, and that’s about what a thermometer read amid the stately historic homes on Benefit Street, underneath the towering maples and oaks that provide a nearly unbroken canopy over the brick-lined sidewalks. 

Two miles west, across the Providence River and past the hospitals, the reading on the same hand-held thermometer in the neighborhood around the Juanita Sanchez Education Complex was a sweltering 104 degrees. On a series of streets off Pavilion Avenue in Lower South Providence, there wasn’t a single tree to shade the double- and triple-deckers from the unrelenting sun. 

A couple of days later, as the string of 90-degree-plus days was coming to an end, Linda Perri, president of the Washington Park Neighborhood Association, was in the area to sign property owners up to get free street trees from the city.  

It's getting too hot:We created scorching 'heat islands' in East Coast cities. Now they're becoming unlivable

Rising water:This RI neighborhood will soon be underwater forever. Can it be saved?

She stopped by a tidy house at the corner of Ocean Street and Pavilion. Gladys Mayi, who owns the house with her husband, Jose, came to the door. She’s noticed what’s missing from her neighborhood versus other areas of the city like College Hill or Silver Lake. 

“I was just saying to my husband, ‘Why does everyone else have trees?’” Mayi said. “I want some.” 

They and their two children live in an urban “heat island,” a place with little greenery and lots of concrete and asphalt that absorb heat and radiate it back into the surrounding air.

A study of Providence, East Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls found that temperatures in these places can be 13 degrees higher than in neighborhoods with more vegetation and fewer buildings. What’s more, paved roads and parking lots slowly release that trapped heat overnight, so the evening hours aren’t as cool as they otherwise would be. 

More:What places in Providence are most at risk from climate change?

"These data show how environmental conditions can vary drastically between neighborhoods in the same city and how where we live can impact our health," said Joseph Wendelken, spokesman for the Rhode Island Department of Health, which cosponsored the study.

Providence is among the 10 worst cities in the nation for this heat-amplifying effect, according to an analysis of 159 metropolitan areas by Climate Central, an organization that researches climate change. 

Some parts of the city are worse than others. They’re typically neighborhoods that are lower-income and have higher populations of people of color. 

That’s true for the streets around Pavilion Avenue, where the entire population is Black or Hispanic and the median household income is $26,000, about half the average for Providence as a whole, according to census data. Childhood asthma rates there are also among the highest in the state.   

Extreme heat kills more Americans than any other weather event, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. People with respiratory illnesses, diabetes and obesity are most at risk. 

Since 2010, there have been 13 heat-related deaths in Rhode Island, including one so far this year, according to the Health Department. The only years in which there were more than one fatality are 2018, with three, and 2013, with four.  

Protecting ourselves:Flood-prone Warren plots an ambitious retreat from rising seas and coastal flooding

Moving:A $138 million relocation plan for Warren's flood-prone neighborhood

Perri knows the disparities between neighborhoods in the city well.  

She’s lived in Washington Park for 40 years and has seen how the areas around her are hit harder by pollution, whether it’s from industrial activities in the Port of Providence or tailpipe emissions from the nearby highway. Heat is just another problem residents must live with. 

After founding the Washington Park Neighborhood Association in 2015, Perri quickly realized that planting more trees could be part of a solution. She talks of a plan for “5,000 trees in 02905,” the ZIP code for the southeastern quarter of Providence.  

Narragansett Bay health:Winter flounder, a Rhode Island favorite, are vanishing from the Bay

Form 40% to zero:Collapse of winter flounder was years in the making

Can we do it again? Rhode Island saved the winter flounder once.

For now, she knocks on doors hoping to convince people to request trees at no cost from the Providence Neighborhood Planting Program. She helped to add 25 trees in Washington Park and South Providence last year and about 70 the year before, she says. It’s part of a broader push by the city to increase tree cover, especially in historically marginalized communities. 

But Perri’s neighborhood still lags. According to an analysis of tree cover by the national organization American Forests, the streets around Perri’s house on Alabama Avenue scored a dismal 60, among the lowest in the city. In contrast, Benefit Street, near the Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design campuses, scored a perfect 100.  

Perri’s backyard is shaded by an old maple, but its canopy doesn’t cover the house. During a heat wave last summer, defined as three days in a row of 90-degree or higher temperatures, the electric bill for one of the apartments she rents topped $300 — even factoring in power from the solar panels on her roof. 

“We have to realize that tree equity is social justice and public health,” Perri said. “It’s all connected.” 

After exiting a car on Pavilion Avenue, Perri looked around the barren landscape. Tree canopy coverage is 9% here, compared with other parts of the city where it’s three, even four times higher. 

“All of this should be treed,” Perri said. 

The Mayis’ property could be the start. The family is from the Dominican Republic and have lived in their house for two years. As Perri walked up, Jose Mayi watered the inkberries in the little garden near the front steps. 

He and his wife requested two trees, one on the street and another in the side yard where they have an outdoor lounge. On the form Perri filled out for them, they agreed to help plant the trees and care for them by watering them and keeping them mulched and free of weeds. 

Gladys Mayi even volunteered to go door-to-door with Perri and translate at the homes of other Spanish-speaking residents. 

Climate anxiety:Feeling hopeless, not wanting to have kids. What can you do about it?

Last weekend, when temperatures were at their highest, the city opened a nearby fire hydrant for neighborhood kids, but the Mayis were worried about cars speeding down the street and didn’t let their 4-year-old son play in the water. Instead, they set up a hose over a bouncy house in the backyard for him. 

The family has two air conditioners. They want a third but can’t afford it. As for the electric bill, they expect it to be higher for this month because they’re running the air conditioners so much, but they have no choice. 

“We need to use them,” said Gladys Mayi. 

Heat waves are expected to grow worse as the planet continues to warm.  

Temperatures have already climbed nearly four degrees in Rhode Island since 1900, the highest rate of warming in New England, according to NOAA. They could go up by twice that amount by the end of this century. Summers in Providence could be more like those today in Richmond, Virginia, if that happens. 

The number of very hot days is also going up. Between 2015 and 2020, the most recent five-year period of data, there were 14 annual days on average with temperatures of 90 degrees or above in the state, nearly double the long-term average. 

“Rhode Islanders may experience more heat-related deaths, and due to the heat island effect, hotter conditions will be most dangerous in urban areas,” NOAA warned in a report earlier this year. 

History:Climate-change clues contained in whaling logbooks kept in the Providence library

Perri’s last stop for the day was at Renaissance Adult Day Center at the corner of Pavilion and Eddy Street, just above Route 95. There are no trees around the property, and Perri had been talking to the owner about planting some there. 

“There’s room for trees all around here,” said Perri.  

Elderly clients at the center like to go outside, even if it’s just to stretch their legs in the parking lot, said program director Amber Ortega. At those times, she sets up plastic canopies to give them some protection from the sun. 

Lately, though, she hasn’t bothered. 

“We couldn’t take them outside,” Ortega said. “It’s too hot.”