Late summer heat wave impacts DC region

The hottest day of the week with dangerous heat impact in the region. In the district there's a heat alert, cooling centers have been activated. Gwen Talbert is in northwest tonight. She has more on what's going on there. Hey Gwen. Hi there. Well you know what, with all this heat the safety of residents is in the forefront for public officials and if you look around me here you can see people have been enjoying the pool here in northwest but there's a very serious component to this and it is their safety. With me now is Thini Freeman from DC Parks and Recreation. Tell me about the heat alert that's been issued in the district. Mayor Bowser issued a heat alert this morning and we want our residents to stay safe. We have cooling centers and we want to welcome them to our amenities and one of which is our pools. And how many cooling centers and pools are available for them? So there are 80 pools and there are 30 there are 80 recreation centers and 36 pools including indoor outdoor throughout the district that are open and free for residents to come in. Now if somebody did have to go to a cooling center tell me you know what is the procedure for them? Did they just show up? Do they have to reserve? You just walk in, have a seat, get some water. If you need emergency services we will gladly assist you. Safety is first and people forget that heat is dangerous and so we want to take the burden off of thinking what to do and just come in and let some adults who are trained in this stuff help you. All right we have people here in the pool but we also have some video we want to show our viewers. Take a look and as we're looking at this video Themi you know tell me are the pools only open to residents of the district and what are the times? The pools are open for residents and visitors of the district. We close our indoor pools at 9 p.m. Our outdoor pools close at 6 p.m. All right and also you know what about if people lose their air conditioning or lose power because that often happens when there's extreme heat. Great question. Please use us as a resource. Our recreation centers are in a 10-minute walk of most people a mile or less so please come on in to use our facilities. If we have to extend our hours we will. All right well back out here live we have a couple of people here. Sydney come on over and tell me you know you came out today you know what was your concern and what are you hoping to achieve out here today in this hot weather? I mean it's so hot out. It's great to just be out in the water. I come here every day after work. The staff is great. The lifeguards are great. It's a great way for these residents to come out. It's a free amenity as a resident so you should come out and just enjoy the community. I see a lot of regulars here. It's just nice to see nice regular faces and say hi to lifeguards. All right so she's staying cool in the water and Jennifer over here. I know there's a book club that came out in this heat. Yes yes I am not cooling off. I am sweating and reading enjoying this beautiful weather at Club Banneker. Okay so shout out to DPR for making this possible. Okay bringing friends together and making mems. All right well there you go. So really nice to be out here but once again safety first in all this heat. We know we got a few more days that we're going to have to deal with it so just keep that in mind and the city here in the district is trying to help you stay safe within it all. Back to you. Gwen thanks.