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It was not until July 15 that an actual heat warning was issued by city officials and living as they did in an 'urban heat island', the elderly was the most affected. The urban heat island is caused by the overcrowding and clustering of buildings, parking lots and roads, all of which put together tend to absorb excess heat during the day, and then radiate excess heat during the night. This is the reason why there is less cooling in urban areas in comparison to rural, and in Chicago in 1995, the elderly citizens living in overcrowded urban areas, all alone, would have their windows closed in fear of crime. To add to their problems, these people had no air conditioning, or lacked the resources to operate the one they had, and this resulted in an oven like atmosphere in their houses. One must remember the important fact that Chicago has five cooling towers, none of which were utilized for this heat wave. (the 1995 Heat Wave in Chicago, Illinois)
To conclude, it must be stated that although it may be a fact that about 175 Americans die every year due to heat related complications, never has America been witness to such an unmitigated disaster related to weather conditions. According to the media, the National Weather Service had indeed issued warnings of the heat wave, and given this warning, several deaths would have been preventable. But what happened? While some people feel that such a heat wave was unprecedented, and this was the reason why it was not recognized as being a public health emergency, some people feel that the government did not handle the situation efficiently. The media also did intensive coverage of the disaster, but people failed to get the warnings on time, and hundreds of people...
Did the media engage in a sort of frame up with the government? Could the disaster have been prevented? These are issues that do not have ready answers, but the fact remains that it was the elderly who had no access to cooling systems, and who lived alone in ghettos with no one to take care of them, who succumbed to the disaster in large numbers. Hundreds of elderly people died due to severe heat conditions, which they could not tolerate, and they could easily have been saved if there had been an effective early warning system in place. (Many of the 1995 heat wave deaths were preventable according to NOAA Report)
References
Angel, Jim. The 1995 Heat Wave in Chicago, Illinois. Illinois State Water Survey. 2007. http://www.sws.uiuc.edu/atmos/statecli/General/1995Chicago.htm
Buchanan, John M. Being Church, becoming community. Westminster John Knox Press.
Dying alone: An interview with Eric Klinenberg. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/443213in.html
Hooke, William H; Rogers, Paul G. Public health risks of disasters, communication, and infrastructure. National Academies Press. 2005.
Kenitzer, Stephanie. Many of the 1995 heat wave deaths were preventable according to NOAA Report. April, 1996. http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/pr96/apr96/noaa96-21.html
Klinenberg, Eric. When Chicago Baked. 2 September, 2005. http://www.slate.com/id/2125572/
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