"Extremely hot — 106, an all time record. Like being hit with a hammer ... had idea about pulling literary quotes on the heat ... so I spent a pleasant hour in the library."
— Journal entry, July 13, 1995
Normality has a weight, an inertia, almost subject to the laws of physics. "Objects at rest tend to stay at rest." Habit sits there, slumbering, pelted by events, and doesn't want to stir, let mercury or flood waters rise.
Thirty years ago, a murderous heat wave hit Chicago — 739 people died. Had they perished in Daley Plaza it would be remembered as an epic tragedy — the Great Chicago fire killed less than half as many. There would be a statue.
But the heat wave victims died alone in scattered rooms, windows sealed, air conditioning broken. They were mostly elderly, though two were toddlers who fell asleep in the back of a day-care van, forgotten for one fatal hour.
The government was slow to grasp what was happening. The media was slow. I was slow.
I remember looking up at Cook County Medical Examiner Edmund Donahue doing a press conference on TV and sniffing: "Showboat. He's calling everybody who dies in Cook County a heat death ..."
In our defense, being slow to recognize problems and then fast to forget them is an American folk illness.
"The political lesson of the heat wave was you can deny and ignore and forget the disaster," said Eric Klinenberg, the New York University sociologist whose 2002 book, "Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago" is the seminal text of the disaster.
"You can say it was an act of God. You can blame the victims for not taking care of themselves, and in American politics, that works. An enduring fact about this enormous Chicago catastrophe is that it just disappeared, almost as it was happening, but certainly after it happened."
"Another wildly hot day ... Head off to the NU library where I got some good books. Dinner at the Davis Street Fish House; though I really wasn't hungry — a factor of the heat."
— July 14, 1995
The literary quote story ran that day and haunts me still. Coleridge's "summer has set in with its usual severity." A bit of light nothing whose underlying message was: It's summer. It's hot. Get over it.
In my 2002 review of "Heat Wave," I wrote:
"As I read over my droll little exercise, I couldn't help but think of some Sun-Times subscriber, an elderly man in a strap T-shirt, sitting in his sweltering, closed room on the West Side, reading halfway through, folding the paper, then quietly turning his face to the wall and dying."
"How is this affecting people other than myself?" is not a very sophisticated question. Not rocket science. Though you can argue our political moment is based on the conviction that huge swathes of the American population simply don't matter and should be ignored, the parts of the government that aid them lopped away.
FEMA was about to be disbanded when the Texas floods hit. Those girls who died at Camp Mystic in Texas were sleeping in cabins built by the river in an "extremely hazardous" floodway.
What the Texas floods had was drama, visuals and the kind of victims the media can get excited about.
"What's especially chilling about the Texas floods is, all these children who died; the drama of the parents looking for the children," Klinenberg said.
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We're primed to bewilderment as we suffer disaster after disaster, many of our own making. We purposely set up dangerously flawed systems for maximum monetary profit for those in power. Most with wealth and power have escape plans in place whether vacation flights, bunker compounds or insane hopes to colonize Mars in their image. The lower castes now powerless to stop the insanity becoming gluttons at the alternate-reality entertainment and religious troughs, like so many frogs in boiling water.
ReplyDeleteNursing homes, many of them warehouses for elderly mentally ill people, we not required to have AC until after that summer.
ReplyDeleteI had a new baby that summer. And a recently hired live in nanny as I transitioned back to work. I remember the frantic call from her parents. She explained to them that this was like in her home country of Ethiopia where those like them were safe given their signifiant resources though people with less were thought the world over as being at risk; in Chicago she was very comfortable in a home with powerful air conditioning.
ReplyDeleteHeat is dangerous. Particularly to the uninformed. Especially to the unequipped
ReplyDeleteHigh temperatures can kill. Immediately and sometime after exposure.
Comorbidities are usually a big factor. Sick people and the unable are killed by the heat and require additional care to avoid exposure
Children don't realize the danger protect them
Sunburn can be a contributing factor. Stay in the shade
Heat can cause lasting damage to the organs and kill you months later
The most important measures to combat heat exposure are water and moving air. A ceiling fan is a huge plus
Drink plenty of tap temperature water.
Cold water causes the body to work harder. Have a fan nearby. Do not wear a hat indoors.
Eat uncooked meals. Fruits and vegetables. Avoid alcohol
Take a cool shower. Wet cloths on your neck , wrists and temples
Acclimate to the heat when it first gets warm. Stay away from air conditioning until it gets really hot.
Open the windows at night when it's cooler outside than in. Curtain the windows against sunlight.
If you have to work outside wear light colored clothing with sleeves use a vented brim.
If your wealthy travel north
With climate change a/c is no longer a luxury but as necessary as heating. We need to figure out how to provide it sustainably and how to pay for it, but I am not sanguine.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I were visiting Chicago on July 14, 1995, which also happened her 48th birthday..It was unforgettable and memorable. Had a hot in the old town that weekend. But since today is now her 78th birthday, I'm busy helping her celebrate it, More later.
ReplyDeleteNorthern Canada is burning. happens every year now. Starts in the springtime and the fires don't end until the following winter. Sometimes they even smolder under the snow cover.
ReplyDeleteAll the money in the world won't help you breathe if you travel north. Neither will masks and ventilation equipment. The smoke is incredibly thick, and travels incredibly far...all over the Midwest and East and out into the Atlantic and down to the Gulf.
This year hasn't been as bad as the last two, but the Great Gray North is still not such a great idea anymore.
I like to think Chicago is better than lots of other large swaths of the country. And perhaps we are, though only marginally. Most of what our society has become is that of a late stage capitalistic behemoth, slowly suffocating itself under its endless rolls of fat; ironically sweating profusely while it cooks itself in a pot of water heated to a boil by its own actions. All this, while the uber rich elites complain its too cold and that they have to wear sweaters while hold up in their air conditioned pool rooms.
ReplyDeleteWhile there are actions we could have taken as a city to help save many of the lives that were lost during that heat wave, the only real way to have saved them would have been via societal changes that would have taken decades, if not centuries. Sadly we haven't done much in that aspect as of yet. Though as a result of those sweltering summer days in '95 we've gotten cooling centers and better about communicating the dangers of heat. And we've also got the swimming pools open... not enough, but at least something.
I view the Texas flooding much differently. Preventative measures that could have saved most, if not all, of the lives were ignored because it cost too much; a paltry $1,000,000 that instead went to police. Gaps and holes in communications warnings only made worse by the DOGE cuts and republican's legislation. I would recommend listening to Chris Tomlinson's interview at https://houston.citycast.fm/podcasts/green-ribbons-for-camp-mystic-plus-calls-for-flood-safety-measures for a very good overview of the issues.
If Texas does make changes, it will be because the deaths were white christian girls. If they are the Republican's i believe they are, it will be too little, too late and yet more than anyone else could possibly have done and hailed as the greatest victory since the storming of the beaches on D-Day.
Heat kills, but it is not nearly as deadly as Republican's and their legislation.
It's always informative to read old print editions of newspapers. Look at the bottom of the front page of the July 14, 1995 issue of the Sun-Times, which is fully reprinted on the Sun-Times website. There is a reference to a "Question & Answer" article with Erik Kramer, the new quarterback for the Chicago Bears. The tone of the lead-in is very upbeat. If you do a Google search on Erik Kramer, you will find that thirty years later, his personal and family lives have been filled with multiple tragedies. It is an interesting coincidence that Kramer's interview was associated with the devastation of the heat wave back in 1995.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find infuriating is when bureaucracy overrides commonsense. Back in mid-May, 2022, Chicago experienced a 4-day heat wave in which high temps ranged from 89-91 degrees each day. Did landlords turn on the A/C? Many did NOT. Why? Because there is an city ordinance requiring landlords to provide heat until June 1, and they feared sanctions. C'mon!
ReplyDeleteThe heating/cooling system where I worked was linked to multiple buildings, which apparently took days to "adjust". The engineers refused to switch to cooling ahead of schedule - told us by the time the cooling kicked in, we'd be calling to demand heat.
But based on a mom-ism I heard growing up, I think the engineers should have erred on the side of cold...My mom used to say it was easier to feel cold than heat - because you could always put on another sweater, but you couldn't always take off more clothes.
This is an article about how the heat killed old people sick people and children not about how somebody was uncomfortable in their cubicle at work.
ReplyDeleteShow some empathy