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Heat-Related Deaths Increase as Temperatures Rise in the West

4 years ago
4 years ago
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Record-breaking heat was expected throughout the West Coast this weekend, days after a deadly heat wave struck Oregon and Washington State

July 11. 2021: Western states braced for another extreme spike in temperatures this weekend after a recent heat wave in Oregon and Washington State killed nearly 200 people and endangered laborers in fields and warehouses.

Excessive heat warnings were in effect across inland California and the Southwest through the weekend, and the national weather service predicted that temperatures would approach an all-time high by Saturday in Las Vegas. A high of at least 130 degrees, which would be one of the highest reliably recorded on earth was forecast for Death Valley.  In Washington, the state health department reported that extreme heat had played a role in the deaths of 78 people since late June, while Oregon’s medical examiner raised the heat-related death toll in that state to at least 116.

The large number of deaths in a part of the country where summers historically have been temperate and heatstroke has rarely been a danger underscored both the sweep of climate change and the vulnerability of vast swaths of the population. Many of the deaths in the Pacific Northwest were among homeless people and those who were older or had medical issues. The hazards have been particularly acute on job sites where manual labor is being done outside in the sun or in workplaces where a lack of air-conditioning has historically not been an issue.

On Friday, Oregon officials were investigating a possible heat-related workplace fatality at a Walmart warehouse. A middle-aged man who was a trainee at Walmart’s distribution center in Hermiston, Ore., “began stumbling and having difficulty speaking” at the end of the afternoon shift on June 24, said Aaron Corvin, a spokesman for Oregon Occupational Safety and Health. The man, who has not been identified, was transferred first to a hospital and then to a medical center in Portland, where he died.

The cause of the man’s death has not yet been determined, and it could take several months to complete the investigation. The man’s co-workers, who said he was in his 50s and had underlying health problems, said he had been with Walmart for about two weeks, earning about $18 an hour, and was working inside a hot trailer in which a fan was the only cooling mechanism. The National Weather Service reported a high that day of 97 degrees.

For the past week, temperatures in the Pacific Northwest have dipped more toward their usual cool levels. But global warming has dramatically intensified the region’s hot spells.
On June 26, two days after the death of the Walmart employee, a farmworker on an irrigation crew collapsed and died in 104-degree heat while moving irrigation lines in a field at a plant nursery in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The following day, managers at an Amazon warehouse complex in Kent, Wash., became so concerned about the rising heat that they handed out iced scarves and scattered floor fans around the building to augment the facility’s usually sufficient climate control measures according to the Seattle Times.
Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon directed relevant authorities to adopt emergency rules before the incoming heat wave, including requirements for employers to provide workers with shade, rest time and cool water during extreme heat events. The state had been working since last year to adopt permanent heat regulations for employers, but the effort was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

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