Deaths of 3 women in early heat wave raise questions, fears | AP News

Deaths of 3 women in early heat wave raise questions, fears
By DON BABWIN May 28, 20221 of 4Veldarin Jackson, Sr., center, talks about receiving the call that his mother, Janice Reed, had died as his wife Adjoa Jackson, left, becomes emotional, Tuesday,

May 24, 2022, in Chicago. Reed was one of the three senior victims who died in a Rogers Park building where residents complained of heat. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office has yet to determine the causes of death for the three women on May 14. (Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune via AP)CHICAGO (AP) — Temperatures barely climbed into the 90s and only for a couple of days. But the discovery of the bodies of three women inside a Chicago senior housing facility this month left the city looking for answers to questions that were supposed to be addressed after a longer and hotter heat wave killed more than 700 people nearly three decades ago.Now, the city — and the country — is facing the reality that because of climate change, deadly heat waves can strike just about anywhere, don’t only fall in the height of summer and need not last long.“Hotter and more dangerous heat waves are coming earlier, in May … and the other thing is we are getting older and more people are living alone,” said Eric Klinenberg, a New York University sociologist, who wrote “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago.” about the 1995 heat wave. “It’s a formula for disaster.”

Deaths of 3 women in early heat wave raise questions, fears | AP News