Heat kills more people in America than all other natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc.) combined. Yet large scale media issued warnings and government produced advisements are limited to those disasters that cause massive property damage and fantastic images great for our sensationalized media, yet are many times less fatal.

Usually news of seven hundred deaths in a week is seen as a major catastrophe, so how then was the person who had the greatest ability to control this large scale massacre

The group that was most affected by the events of the July, 1995 heat wave was the increasing population of poor elderly who live alone in social isolation, especially those who live in areas with exceedingly high crime rates. Seventy-three percent of those who perished were over the age of sixty-five. In 1970 about 10.9 million people lived alone, by 1996 that number soared to 24.9 million. Of those reported as living alone in 1996, forty percent, or about 10 million were 65 or older.

Many of the government officials who could have made a difference denied having the ability to do so. Mayor Daley was in denial and issued statements such as “Every day people die of natural cause. You cannot claim that everybody who has died in the last eight or nine days dies of heat. Then everyone in the summer that dies will die of heat.” That statement actually reaffirmed the initial beliefs of the city’s chief medical examiner, Edmund Donoghue. Donoghue, after hearing Daley’s claims, actually agreed with him and insisted that no one who died during the heat wave had died from anything but the heat.

Today North Lawndale is a neighborhood full of vacant lots of tall grass and debris, boarded up businesses, and a plethora of drug dealers, gangs, and violent crime. Many of the people that live there are those that have aged in place, continuing to live in their homes and neighborhoods while their friends and family have either passed on or moved away. These are living examples of the “fear of crime” that Klinenberg was referring to in reference to the increased vulnerability of the elderly. Many of the people Klinenberg came in contact with through his field study of the area stressed their concern with, “getting caught up in other people’s problems” and reminisced about the times when they could, “sit outside all night.” Now most of these people rarely, if ever, leave the security of their own homes. Health officials are concerned with the plight of these people in particular because they do not get enough exercise, sunlight, and in many cases are malnourished due to the lack of quality grocery stores and restaurants in the area. The fact that the streets are such a scary place take away many of the opportunities that these residents once had for social encounters. Without the development of these networks, many of the people who suffered through the heat wave never received help on time, and fell victim to the very thing that was supposed to keep them safe, their home.

Some topics in this essay:
North Lawndale, Little Village, Hurricane Andrew, National Guard, Duis History, Daniel Alvarez, Richard Daley, Studs Terkel, Heat Wave, Mayor Daley, heat wave, north lawndale, little village, richard daley, people die, mayor richard, mayor richard daley, died heat, social autopsy disaster, chicago’s government, considered completely, thirty forty ago, friends family, wave social autopsy, book heat wave,