The summer monsoon rains that historically help Phoenix residents and the vegetation cool down have been scant this year and even the cacti have started to collapse.

Health workers say hospitals have been inundated with patients suffering from heat-stroke, sometimes life-threatening.

“We’ve had patients that are 111 degrees. Your brain cannot handle that that long.”

Patients are put into an ice slurry to bring their temperatures down as quickly as possible.

At noon, the record temperature is 109F but the surface temperature is a furnace-like 150F. A construction worker drinks water and the camera shows his body is at 105F.

Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, is now a city of 1.6 million, the fifth most populous in the United States. It sprang to life over 150 years ago with the arrival of the pioneers, who built irrigation canals to make the land fertile.

Despite its location in the Sonoran Desert – which stretches across the U.S. southwest and into northern Mexico – Phoenix has become a favorite place for retirees, attracted by year-round sun and its ochre mountain backdrop.