Phoenix summer is a strange season, one that we think we understand, and anticipate, until the heat is upon us, that indescribable heat — sizzling, blistering, scorching heat. This year, at ease after a rainy spring and the dreamy superbloom that followed, we thought we were prepared for the summer. Until July arrived. For 31 days, beginning on the last day of June, daily highs did not dip below 110 degrees. Somewhere in the haze of the July heat wave was a particularly dreadful stretch: three 119-degree days. Meteorologists told us daily of the heat records that were broken. Gawking pundits in New York opined on the mistakes of building a city in the desert. As best we could, we tried to stay indoors. All the while, the heat wave threw into relief the deep failures of our city, as does every summer in Phoenix: the lack of shade, the lack of housing, the lack of protections for workers out in the hellish sun, the people suffering on the streets, the slumlords ignoring the broken air conditioning, the water drying up. None of those failures are inevitable, though the heat may be. And the heat descended, unrelenting.