By the time you read this you'll probably have all but forgotten about July's searing heat wave, when Sacramento posted a record 11 straight days of triple-digit temperatures.

At first, it was kind of neat to see whether Sacramento would finally break the record of 9 consecutive days of plus 100-degree heat, which had stood since 1877 when such things first began to be recorded. After all, if you're going to suffer anyway, you might as well suffer for a noble cause – so to speak.

But by the 10th straight day things started to turn decidedly unappealing, when reports of multiple heat-related deaths, primarily among the poor and elderly, started to pour in. On the 10th Day, the bodies of three elderly men were reportedly found in separate, downtown Sacramento hotel apartment buildings, the victims of apparent heat stroke, while four more heat-related deaths involving mostly victims age 60 or older were reported on the 11th and final day of the heat wave. All tolled, 85 heat-related deaths (67 of which involved those age 65 and older) were reported throughout the State from July 14th to July 26th, with nine of those deaths occurring in Sacramento County.

In reading the various newspaper accounts of the situation, I was touched not so much by how they died, but why they died. In far too many cases, those that died lived alone, without friends or family to call on. That people die from natural disasters, despite our best efforts to minimize the risk, is simply a fact of life. But to die alone, and for no better reason than the want of a decent air conditioner, seems to me the greater tragedy.

Although the 2006 heat wave created no where near the devastation and loss that Katrina visited upon the poor people of New Orleans in 2005, like Katrina, it still reminds us that the poor and elderly remain among the most vulnerable members of our society, especially in times of natural disaster, when family and friends, or the lack thereof, can play such a pivotal role in determining one's survival.

September/October 2006