Colombian Caribbean Heat Makes Cooling Essential Just as Drought Squeezes Water and Power

El Niño is intensifying heat across the Colombian Caribbean, sending residents to clinics while drought strains water and electricity supplies. Public cooling spaces offer relief, but rising demand exposes a difficult question: how much power can households afford to save?

The Heat Behind the Numbers

In Cartagena, the argument over electricity has come down to something as ordinary as switching on a fan. Gabriela Tinoco, the city’s disaster risk management director, put it plainly in an interview with EFE: “It is not a luxury; it is an act of survival.”

Temperatures have reached 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 Fahrenheit, while humidity has pushed reported feels-like readings beyond 55 Celsius, or 131 Fahrenheit. EFE reported that IDEAM, Colombia’s meteorological agency, placed the Caribbean coast on red alert.

Those are different measurements, not competing accounts. The higher figure combines temperature with humidity to describe perceived heat. Moist air makes it harder for sweat to evaporate and cool the body. A threatening afternoon can therefore be considerably more punishing than the thermometer alone suggests.

Barranquilla and Cartagena have reported increases of up to 25% in consultations for dehydration, heatstroke and cardiorespiratory complications, particularly among children and older adults. Both cities have at times activated emergency protocols as patients arrived. EFE’s account supplies neither baseline totals nor a comparison period, so the percentage cannot establish how many additional people sought care.

It nevertheless describes a substantial potential workload: one additional consultation for every four previously recorded. For families, the emergency can mean leaving work to accompany a relative; for clinics, treating more patients while the heat continues outside.

Fans and air conditioners are not interchangeable protection. The World Health Organization warns against relying on electric fans when air temperatures exceed 40 Celsius. A fan can move air without making an overheated room safe.

Less Water, More Demand

The same weather that increases demand for cooling is pressuring the resources needed to provide it. EFE puts hydroelectricity’s contribution at approximately two-thirds of Colombian generation. Reduced rainfall means less water to replenish reservoirs while households reach for electrical appliances.

That creates pressure on both sides of the electricity system. A fall in hydroelectric output requires replacement generation or lower consumption; extra cooling increases demand. Reservoir decline does not automatically mean blackouts, but it narrows the margin for meeting demand.

The national electricity regulator, CREG, introduced a temporary conservation program on September 1. Its design is more specific than a charge for every increase: additional billing applies above 110% of an individual consumption target. The first billing cycle is educational, with prospective charges shown for information rather than payment.

For an illustrative target of 200 kilowatt-hours, that threshold is 220. Targets reflect consumption history, so households do not all face the same numerical ceiling. But a previous bill records electricity used under previous conditions; it cannot establish how much cooling an exceptionally hot home now requires.

Barranquilla Mayor Alejandro Char has requested an approach that recognizes regional differences. In remarks reported by EFE, he asked how residents facing feels-like temperatures around 50 Celsius could avoid turning on a fan, pointing to risks for older people.

The regulator’s stated purpose is to reduce supply pressure. Coastal officials are asking how that objective accommodates essential cooling. Their disagreement concerns which increases households can realistically avoid, not whether drought threatens the electricity system.

A Cooler Place to Wait

Barranquilla has announced hydration points in busy commercial areas and plans for public spaces that combine shade, vegetation, and water features. Existing fountains would be restored, with misting equipment and sprinklers incorporated into an urban network of cooling refuges, according to the municipal statement reported by EFE.

For someone without effective cooling at home or work, the location of such a refuge matters. A shaded space across town is different from one beside a daily route. Its opening hours, drinking water, and accessibility determine whether taking a break is genuinely possible.

For an outdoor worker paid by the day, a cooling break may protect health while interrupting earnings. The cost of heat is not confined to the electricity bill or the hospital visit.

Water-based cooling also introduces a practical tension during drought. The question extends beyond installing equipment to how much water it uses, whether it can recirculate supplies, and how it will operate when availability tightens. The announcement does not establish those details.

In Cartagena, Tinoco described the “Pilas con el Niño” campaign, which trains communities in prevention as drought raises wildfire concerns. EFE also reports water interruptions in Medellín and reduced agricultural production in the Caribbean, linking the crisis beyond the coast to household supplies and food costs.

A smaller harvest can leave farmers with less to sell while buyers pay more. Combined with additional cooling expenses, that can squeeze the same household budget from different directions. The reporting provides no crop-specific losses or food-price series with which to quantify that burden.

The outlook extends beyond this hot spell. NOAA’s September forecast assigned a 75% probability that the event would exceed earlier El Niños dating to 1950. The World Meteorological Organization expects it to persist through February 2027, while emphasizing that local impacts vary.

For coastal families, the immediate challenge is closer than that forecast: keeping a child or an older relative cool without losing the water and electricity that make relief possible.

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