Hot Time in the Old Town - Edward Kohn [114]
Today, heat remains the most deadly natural killer in the United States, on average killing more Americans than floods, earthquakes, tornados, and hurricanes combined. Cities and local authorities have developed a number of responses to heat-wave crises, including automatic “Heat-Wave Response” plans, cooling centers, and door-to-door checks on the elderly. Heat disasters still strike with horrific consequences. The Chicago heat wave of 1995 killed over 700 people. Moreover, the European heat wave of 2003 contributed to an estimated 52,000 deaths, 15,000 in France alone. While the 1896 New York heat wave and modern heat waves seem to have little in common, in reality they occur for similar reasons: heat sources in the city, pollution that traps the heat, asphalt and cement architecture that traps and reflects heat, and the lack of parks and shade. Even such modern entities that should mitigate heat-wave fatalities, such as the social safety net and air conditioners, regularly fail, as government officials do nothing or electric grids break down. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the number of heat-related fatalities could double in less than twenty years. Until governments, media, and average citizens understand that heat waves, while less dramatic, constitute as great or even greater a threat to human life than other kinds of natural disasters, people will continue to die from heat by the thousands.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I WOULD LIKE TO thank the following for their support and hard work on my behalf: my Bilkent University research assistants, Dogus Ozdemir and Gulsah Senkol; Bilkent University for annual research grants; Bilkent University Library Director David Thornton for acquiring the Theodore Roosevelt Papers on microform; the helpful and efficient staffs of the Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room, New York Public Library, New York Municipal Archives, and New York City Hall Library; Wallace Dailey, the exceptionally knowledgeable and helpful curator of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard University; and my wife, Pelin, children, Alara and Arda, and my parents, Robert and Bette Jane, for all of their love and support.
APPENDIX A:
DEATH CERTIFICATES FILED, AUGUST 4–17, 1895 AND 1896
Note: Two things seem of particular interest in these totals. (1) On August 4, and on August 6 in Manhattan only, the total deaths actually went down in 1896. During the same period in 1895, the weather was reported as “cool and delightful,” meaning that the weather probably did not contribute to any extra deaths on those early August days that year. The totals seem simply to fall within the “normal” number of deaths that in Manhattan fluctuated between about 120 and 140 each day. (2) With the heat wave over, in Manhattan by August 17, the total number of deaths were under even the “normal” numbers. This was likely caused by the phenomenon of “harvesting”: The heat wave contributed to the deaths of people who were soon to die anyway, leading to a slight dip in the number of deaths in the days just after a heat wave. I included these “low death” days to provide a more accurate reflection of the mortal effects of the heat wave, rather than giving seemingly exaggerated numbers.
APPENDIX B:
WHO DIED: MANHATTAN, TUESDAY, AUGUST 11
AUGUST 11, 1896, was one of the deadliest days in New York City history. In Manhattan that Tuesday, more than two hundred people died from the heat. As the following numbers illustrate, the heat wave did not strike down New Yorkers indiscriminately. Although clerks, bankers, and brokers died, the heat wave took an inordinate toll among laborers. And although the heat had an enormous impact among the very old and very young, infants