Eugene Update #7 Heat Dome

 Eugene Update #7 Heat Dome

Or as I lay panting

So even as I emphasize: Check on your loved ones, even as my mind flashes back to the heat crisis of 1995, I rode my bike back from Portland under a historic heat dome. First the bad news.

Even as I write now, the county is tallying up the additional deaths that may be a result of the heat dome. I quote from a news article: Friends and relatives are still walking into houses/apartments to find their loved ones deceased.

It’s that easy to die from heat.

Here in Eugene hardly anyone has AC. If it’s hot you open the window. But, under the heat advisory we were told to CLOSE the windows. It was important to keep the heat out during the hottest part of the day—about from 3 – 7 pm.

So in the a.m. or over night keep doors and windows open for the expected cool air. But, under the heat dome, there was little relief at night. For example, in my room it never got below 85.

Typically, the weather in Eugene is a bit like the desert. It heats up over the course of the day, but once the sun sets, its cools dramatically. Except under the heat dome, it stayed relatively hot. Maybe not 111 or whatever the high was here, but not much different than the 116 in Portland.

So without AC and warned to keep the windows shut, How did I keep cool? I didn’t. It was exhausting for my body to fight the heat, so I mostly lay in bed reading on top of the sheets with a fan blowing on me and wet cloths on my head, chest. I drank cup after cup of water. I had little appetite. Even ice cream sounded too gelatinous. Every 10 minutes or so I’d ask Alexa the temperature. It sounded like she was reading the core of the earth. It climbed a degree every half hour. At one point in the apartment it was 97.

 I could have gone to the Eugene Events Center, literally a 3 minute bike ride from me, but I didn’t want to. 1) I’d have to wear a mask and that didn’t sound fun, 2) I could be uncomfortable at home or be a little more comfortable not home. I preferred to stay where I was. Maybe I was already heat-addled. I basically didn’t want to be bothered. I had my books, my computer, a TV (in a scorching hot living room), but I could also be close to my stuff. I definitely get how people died in 1995 and now today.

They’re still counting the fatalities and attributing sudden deaths over the past week and the toll is likely to go higher than the 500 deaths already thought to be because of the heat dome in the Pacific Northwest. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/us/heat-wave-deaths-oregon-canada-washington.html

For more info on the deadly heat wave of 1995 that disproportionally affected older or minority Chicagoans go here or read Orphan Girl, the book I wrote about Marie James a bag lady in Chicago.

* The July 1995 Chicago heat wave led to 739 heat-related deaths in Chicago over a period of five days. Most of the victims of the heat wave were elderly poor residents of the city, who could not afford air conditioning and did not open windows or sleep outside for fear of crime. Wikipedia