More than 80 dead as heat wave bakes California

[Purveyor]

(07-26) 18:20 PDT San Francisco (AP) --


The body count from California's record-setting heat wave grew to almost seven dozen Wednesday, forcing coroners in one county to stack victims two to a gurney in morgues as temperatures took a barely perceptible dip.


On the 11th day of triple-digit heat in the Central Valley, deaths probably caused by the heat reached 20 in Fresno County, and 19 in neighboring Stanislaus County, bringing the total number of deaths in the state since the beginning of this heat wave to 83.


Fresno County Coroner Loralee Cervantes said her staff was doing autopsies nonstop in 90-degree heat to deal with the pileup. Decomposing bodies make it difficult to verify the exact cause of death, she said.


Meanwhile, Californians took stock of other damage wrought by the extreme temperatures, from fruit and nuts scorched on the vine to a state power grid battered by the constant demand for electricity.

---end of excerpted article---

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/07/26/state/n170336D55.DTL

[Purveyor]

1. I knew it was hot out there...

heck, it is hot here, but I had no idea the death toll had risen to this level.

Wonder what the count is nationwide with the St. Louis & NYC blackouts?

[Gormy Cuss]

3. Most of the dead are low income seniors or people with disabilities

living in homes with no A/C or broken A/C. The central valley has been baking. It's an area known for hot weather this time of year but this stretch is just far out of normal range. For one thing, it's not unusual to have temps are 100 degrees during the day out there but it cools down quickly in the evening hours and it's a decent sleeping temperature by 11 PM at the latest.

That pattern is probably why some of these poor victims thought they'd be alright with fans and the like. The problem is that this heat wave had higher humidity than normal and not the hint of a breeze for days on end and night time temperatures stay high and felt higher because of the humidity so houses didn't cool off. I read in the SF Chronicle today that they were finding dead people in houses with an indoor temp as high as 110.

[EFerrari]

5. In SROs. And that's why Newsom's office is trying to shake me off.

Oh well. I'll get the numbers somehow.

And if one of those "numbers" is a homeless person I know, that's IT!

:nuke:

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Thanks, I forget to mention the SROs. n/t

[Cha]

2. Poor things! If it's not one

thing it's another!:-(

[EFerrari]

4. I called and asked Mayor Gavin Newsom what measures

we were taking re the homeless and the heat wave.

A nice, neat assistant took the message.

No call back.

[chookie]

7. We don't have money to save Americans from disaster

It's all being funneled into war and tax cuts.

Clearly, Israeli lives and plutocrat wealth are more important than the lives of vulnerable Americans.

Here we go again -- disaster like NOLA again. But no round-the-clock coverage, because the elderly and disabled do not make sexy television.

Yeah -- no money to rebuild America's weakened infrastructure -- just $$$ for idiotic, unnecessary, self-destructive war.

[Robbien]

13. Electricity has been out in several counties in Illinois/Missouri

for the last ten days due to the storm which roared through there. It has been ten days and counting with no electricity. Katrina-like damage on a smaller scale is happening all over this nation with funds for recovery coming in very very slooowly.

[Ecumenist]

8. Um, whoever wrote this report

should spend a little bit of time in Geography class, Fresno DOES NOT border Stanislaus county. Madera, Merced and Tuolomne counties separate Fresno and Stanislaus Counties. Oh man!:banghead:

BTW, Gormy,I agree with you COMPLETELY! I expect there are uncounted dead here amongst the homeless as many live along the Rivers, Sacramento and American Rivers in the heavily overgrown riparian banks. It's been hot as hell and heavy humidity as well. They'll probably be found as the growth dies back in the fall..

[XemaSab]

9. In another article about this in the E/E forum

they said Fresno was in the North Valley. :banghead:

[Ecumenist]

17. OH my God...

do these people ever take even a cursory glance at a map of the state, for crying out loud? Good googly moogly!!:banghead:

[unda cova brutha]

10. how can people still deny global warming isn't happening?

put the kool aid down peeple. It does exist and it is killing us off.

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

[bleedingheart]

11. I knew a guy who resented that the poor were given air conditioners

during heat waves...

I asked him..."would you rather the taxpayers pay for funerals?...they are far more expensive"..

he was a typical right wing freak.

[Mz Pip]

12. My in-laws live in the valley

and we have told them that if their power went out they should get in the car and drive to our house. It's foggy and 58 degrees right now where we are in the SF Bay Area.

My mother-in-law didn't seem to be too concerned. "Oh if the air conditioning goes out we'll just turn on the fan!" she chirped. Hopefully she'll figure out real fast that if the air conditioner doesn't work the fan won't either.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Whoa_Nelly]

15. I live in the valley

Am about 40 miles south of Fresno. We had power outage this last Sunday for about 4 hours.

Should we have a huge blackout down here, I will go to my son's to get in the pool there, (he's in a neighboring small town about 10 miles from me.) And, if things are really bad, and his town suffers from power outage over long period of time, too, will encourage my son and DIL to pack it up with the kids, and we'll all go over to the coast.
(hmmmm...better make sure the cars are gassed up...seems if there's a huge blackout that would last days, am thinking that means the gas pumps won't be working!)

[gratuitous]

14. Any word from Sacramento?

What action is the governor taking to give Californians relief? Any emergency programs getting geared up and implemented?

[Whoa_Nelly]

16. Great thread that has a collection of heat wave articles started

Add your own!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2744402&mesg_id=2744402