Protecting Miami From Extreme Heat

Editor's Note: This article appears in Governing's Q2 2026 Magazine. You can subscribe here.


When Jane Gilbert became Miami-Dade County’s “chief heat officer,” she was the first local leader in the world to hold that title. Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who appointed her, recognized that addressing extreme heat — a quiet killer and growing menace — required focused attention at the local level. Five years later, Miami-Dade now has the lowest rates of heat-related ER visits.

Gilbert’s approach started with data. She commissioned a vulnerability analysis, which identified the people and neighborhoods most susceptible to heat-related illness. Other studies showed that about 600 county residents a year die of heat — about 60 times more than the number officially recorded on death certificates. Researchers also found a clear relationship between a higher heat index and additional deaths and a $10 billion annual cost of lost worker productivity due to heat.

“First you have to build the case,” Gilbert says. “Heat is not at the forefront of decision-makers’ minds. Getting data on both the health and economic impacts, and making sure those results get to decision-makers, is a critical piece of the strategy.”

Next, Gilbert built a vehicle for collective action. She co-chaired a multifaceted task force that gathered stakeholder feedback and distilled it into a Heat Action Plan with three goals and 19 actions that are starting to make a difference.

The most visible activities relate to education and outreach. The county now publicly declares May 1 to Oct. 31 as “heat season.” That opens a wave of multilingual campaigns in vulnerable neighborhoods, reminding older adults, pregnant women, outdoor workers and others to stay cool, hydrate and check in on neighbors. The National Weather Service lowered by three degrees its thresholds for issuing heat advisories and warnings. And emergency responders, health-care workers and summer camp providers are trained to identify those at risk and address symptoms.

Other steps are focused on increasing access to cool air and shade. The county installed 1,700 air conditioning units in public housing and expanded its network of cooling centers. Hundreds of new bus shelters give transit riders a place to get out of the sun, while tens of thousands of trees are being planted, particularly in low-income neighborhoods where canopy cover is lowest and temperatures are highest.

Late last year, Gilbert left Miami-Dade to become chief heat ambassador with the Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center. In her new role, Gilbert advises 14 jurisdictions across the U.S. on their own efforts to address extreme heat. Some are borrowing strategies straight from Miami-Dade: Minnesota’s Hennepin County has launched an outreach program helping pregnant women on Medicaid to better understand their elevated heat risk. Meanwhile, Philadelphia is trying something Miami-Dade did not: going all in on heat responses within one particularly vulnerable neighborhood.

“Certain strategies are very transferable,” Gilbert says — while questions like which trees will grow in different regions are very localized. What’s the same everywhere, she believes, is the need for collaboration.

“Addressing extreme heat is not something you can do alone,” Gilbert says. “In Miami-Dade, we had hospitals and doctors taking the lead on certain actions and community-based organizations, university partners, our parks department, emergency management and homeless outreach leading on others. That’s how you get the work done.”