(bright upbeat music) - Well, there's no need to sweat the heat or your electricity bill this summer.

Cool Zones offer free accessible places to stay safe during extreme heat.

Joining us in the studio with your all-access pass to chill out this summer is Kelly Colopy.

Welcome, Kelly.

- Hi, thank you.

- So tell me about these Cool Zones, where are they located?

- Yeah, so Cool Zones are all across the county and they really are different county and city facilities that are open during the day, and so you can get to your libraries, both city and county, you can get into senior centers if you're over the age of 60.

We also have homeless centers around for people who are experiencing homelessness.

So it really does cover all of Salt Lake County.

- [Liz] Why is this something that's crucial for people living here in Utah?

- Yeah, so I mean, people are noticing it's not getting any cooler except maybe this last weekend.

And I think, you know, as the heat continues, we wanna make sure that people are safe, and extreme heat is really a public health issue.

There are a lot of folks who can't afford their electric bills or, you know, keep their air conditioning on and others.

We wanna make sure that they have places to go that they can be cool and that they're not struggling.

- [Liz] How dangerous can it get for people who don't have those resources?

- It can be very dangerous.

People think often that if they just remain in their house, they're not outside, that they'll be cooler or other things.

But, you know, illness can look like dizziness, illness can look like heart palpitations, heart debris, those kinds of things.

We want people to know that these things are happening and that they can get to a place that is cool.

- And I've passed out from the heat a couple of times and it really just hits you all of a sudden.

- It does, yeah.

So it's important to keep water around and, you know, we encourage people to carry water with them, and if they can support others that they see are high, you know, be able to pass out water and support folks as they're going through.

- Well, thank you, I really appreciate that you guys are providing this service.

It really does wonders in the summertime for people who don't have access to air conditioning and cool spaces, so thank you for the work that you do.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- And if you would like to learn more information about Salt Lake County Mayor Offices Cool Zones, just head to the website slco.to/zones to get more information about Cool Zones.

I'm Liz Adeola, and thank you for watching "Contact".

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