Places ready to handle the summer heat

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Various businesses and charities are ready to tackle the heat wave that is affecting West Michigan.

Several places have opened their doors to help people get out of the sun. Mel Trotter Ministries in Grand Rapids is opening their doors around the clock to help anyone who needs to get out of the heat.

"When the heat reaches a certain point where it becomes a threat to a person's physical being, we allow people, like women and children to stay in our shelter all day long out of the heat. The men who come in to our community shelter, they're allowed to come in and stay during the day and sit in our air conditioned chapel," Paul Carmichael said.

The Red Cross tells 24 Hour News 8 they are on standby to set up cooling shelters for those in need.

Chip Kragt, Emergency Services Director at the Grand Rapids Red Cross, said "We can open a shelter within two hours, so we're ready to go at anytime".

There will be a cooling center open in Rockford at the Rockford Christian Reformed Church. It will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

In Wyoming, Welsey Park United Methodist Church, located at 32nd Street and Michael Ave in Wyoming, has several air-conditioned rooms in their building. They are open to the public from 11 a.m to 4 p.m. during the heat wave.

The Kalamazoo and Battle Creek chapters of the Red Cross will open up their cooling centers Wednesday. The Battle Creek center is located at 14600 Beadle Lake Road in Battle Creek; the Kalamazoo center is located at 5640 Venture Court in Kalamazoo. Both centers will open at 12 p.m.; the Battle Creek center will close at 8 p.m. and the Kalamazoo center will close at 7:45 p.m.

Consumers Energy is monitoring the energy usage among their customers who are mostly on this side of the state. Consumers officials reassure the public they have the capacity to keep the electricity flowing.

So far there has been no widespread outages experienced in West Michigan. Consumers says they have the capacity to keep up with demand over the next several days.

"We're monitoring the system, monitoring the amount of electricity we have a demand for," said Consumers Energy spokesman Tim Pietryga "They're also monitoring temperature too; if they seem to get excessive, we may indeed dispatch a crew to take appropriate action."

On Monday, Consumers Energy announced that it has suspended electricity shut offs to senior citizens and will decide on other shut offs on a case by case basis through the duration of the heat wave.

If you need help from Red Cross officials, you can contact them at one of the phone numbers below:

•In Grand Rapids: 616-456-8661

•In Kalamazoo: 269-353-6180

•In Battle Creek: 269-962-7528

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