Transcript: Code Blue Warning: Mayor de Blasio Reminds New Yorkers to Stay Warm and Help Others at Risk

February 11, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good afternoon, everyone. Before we get started on the Zika issue, I’d like to provide an update to all New Yorkers about weather conditions we’ll be confronting in the next few days. I’d like to provide a very clear warning that this is a health challenge unto itself. The weather in the coming days will really present a challenge for many New Yorkers, and should be taken very, very seriously. And again – one of the follow-up questions Dr. Palacio and Dr. Bassett can speak to that in greater detail.

I want to let all New Yorkers know that we’ll be experiencing extraordinarily cold weather over the next few days. Temperatures are going to begin dropping tonight. We expect wind chills values tonight in the single digits as low as five degrees tonight. But then temperatures will drop even lower in the coming days. Friday night into Saturday morning wind chills will be as low as five below zero. Again, Friday night into Saturday morning we expect wind chills to go as low as five below zero. But that is not even the worse. The worse will come overnight Saturday into Sunday. This will be the coldest time. We’re forecasting the temperatures will plummet to around zero early Sunday morning – zero degrees before the wind chill, Sunday morning. With wind chill factored in, we expect temperatures that could be as low 23 degrees below zero by Sunday morning. But this entire time we’re talking about in these coming days people have to take this very, very seriously. This is really abnormal, and these are dangerous conditions. So, we’re asking everyone to change their habits, really think carefully about what they’re doing in these circumstances. But again, emphasizing, Saturday night into Sunday morning with wind chill we could see effective temperatures as low as 23 below zero – something we very, very rarely experience.

Now, put very simply these can be life-threatening conditions and people should treat that with all seriousness, in particular – to seniors, to infants, to people with cardiovascular or lung conditions, and people under the influence of alcohol or drugs, obviously, can be particularly endangered because they would not perceive the full threat they’re facing. So, I’m asking all New Yorkers to please take special care in these coming days. Take care of yourself and your family, but also look out for your neighbors. In each one of these challenges and crises we talk about the importance of looking out for your neighbor, looking out seniors, look out for folks with disabilities, look out for anyone you think may not have heat in their home. We have to really be careful in this timeframe.

We’re activating our Code Blue status tonight through Sunday, that means there will be intensive outreach, trying to make sure that all homeless folks get off the streets – anyone who might be in danger gets off the streets.  We’ll have a very aggressive outreach effort led by our Department of Homeless Services working closely with NYPD and FDNY. As you’ve seen in the last few weeks, those efforts have been very effective at getting people in – overwhelmingly voluntary, some involuntary. That effort will be done with force.

We want to say to all New Yorkers when you go out in the coming days, please go out for only as little as possible. Do not prolong your time outside. Go out with multiple layers of clothing. Avoid exposed skin for as maximum time as possible. Wear a hat, wear a hood, and wear a scarf. Do all you can to protect yourself. A reminder that building owners all over the city are required to provide ample heat and hot water to their tenants. If anybody is not getting their heat and hot water they need, they should be calling 3-1-1 immediately. We need to act on the situation now knowing that these temperatures will plummet in coming days. There’s an additional risk and we’ve seen this play out tragically whenever we have these cold snaps that some people start to improvise ways of heating their homes. And they use any [inaudible] that can create the danger of either fire or carbon monoxide poisoning. So, we want to please discourage all New Yorkers from using efforts to heat a home that are not the official way to heat a home that can be dangerous unto oneself. The best thing to do is make sure your heat and hot water is coming to you. If it is not coming to you, call 3-1-1 so we can go there and have the city make repairs through effort and get you the hot water and the heat you deserve. It’s also very important to make sure that carbon monoxide monitors and smoke alarms are working and are up to date in times like this.

And now a few words in Spanish:

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]  

So that is an update on weather conditions right now. Again, this is extraordinarily cold temperatures and an extraordinarily rare situation for the city so all New Yorkers should take this very, very seriously.