I just had my power restored this morning. It was a couple of sticky nights but not as bad as I feared. I hope everyone's power is restored soon because it's going to be miserable without it.

I respectfully submit that the logic you describe is a fallacy. It is not necessarily that heat kills people. It is more likely that simply a CHANGE in a person's living environment produces problems. If someone lives in an artifically cool environment and then looses that effect due to a power failure, then they are more stressed as a result. In other words, not being acclimated is the problem. Think about it. There are billions of people living in the world with no access to air conditioning (many right here in the good old USA). So, where are no news reports about hundreds of people suddenly dying of heat as suggested in this article.

0nl00k3r -- Appreciate the comment, though I think you're kind of arguing over semantics here. Whether it's the heat on its own that kills, or if it's change in the person's living environment, the heat is still the trigger contributing to the change.

Hopefully this post makes it into the print edition, since if someone is reading it, then they probably already have power.

See here for a Heat Index chart and a link to last season's hot chat on heat.

Just another suggestion for those w/o AC or w/o power on a good place to beat the heat - a library. Generally nice and cool and quiet, with plenty of books to read, and sometimes wi-fi access if you have a laptop. So, you can escape the heat of your powerless apartment AND read CapitalWeather at the same time :).

0nl00ker:

Your post in my mind boils down to a "they didn't have A/C in the old days" post. And you do have a point. That said, your premise that people are panzified by A/C is off in my mind. There are several things to keep in mind.

First, urbanization. 95 degrees while sitting under a big live oak with a nice breeze and a cold glass of lemonade on a farm in Texas is very different from 95 degrees in Hells Kitchen in New York City. The density of the buildings blocks wind, the pavement gets searing, and the whole place in general becomes an oven. Further, temps on "the farm" will drop significantly overnight, providing the body a needed break, which temps in the city may well stay stifling. Many experts say the worst killer in heat wave is not record highs, but warm overnight lows. The body can deal with heat if it has a break, but when there is no break, just continued stress at night, combined with inability to sleep due to the warmth, and health problems can come quickly. Put simply, the "urban heat island" effect has made heat waves much more deadly.

Second consideration is building styles. Modern buildings are designed to be efficient with use of modern heating and cooling systems. Many of those same features may actually make the building WORSE when such systems are down. Ventilation is often minimal.