Amsterdam is one of very few Dutch municipalities with a full time heat coordinator, and this summer the job stopped needing an explanation.
Eline Coolen holds the post at GGD Amsterdam. Her work is to get the city through its increasingly frequent tropical days as safely as possible.
“This is already the busiest summer of my career,” she says.
People Stopped Being Sceptical
Where colleagues once reacted dismissively to what she does, Coolen no longer has to argue that heat is a serious problem.
“Everyone felt it themselves,” she says.
The Budget Is Small Enough to Be Visible
On the day NU.nl followed her, fifteen fans were due to be delivered to the neighbourhood team in Amsterdam Centrum. The cargo bike meant to carry them broke down.
Two interns ended up taking them across the city on the metro using a coffee cart from the office building. There is not much budget, so the work requires improvisation.
The fans go to Amsterdam residents who cannot easily keep themselves cool. The coordination runs through the local neighbourhood teams, which is how the GGD reaches people who would not otherwise ask for help.
