The deadliest heat wave recorded in the history of the world occurred in the USA in 1911 and killed thousands of people. Imagine such a temperature that even the train tracks have melted. When you think about it, it doesn’t seem impossible anymore, because the temperatures increasing day by day are giving us this nightmare.
These days, we too are struggling with scorching temperatures. While we take our precautions in the face of these temperatures, let’s take a journey in history and see how people coped with the heat wave in 1911.
July 1911… Temperatures on the east coast of the United States showed 40 degrees.
The hot weather, which felt its effect for days, ended the lives of 211 people in New York alone. People have come to such a point that they even tried to commit suicide by jumping into rivers and lakes. At that time, New York and Philadelphia became the center of warmth, while railroads were bent in New England and workers were allowed to work.
As air conditioning and fans were not available at that time, unfortunately, people had a hard time dealing with the hot weather.
The number of people dying from hot weather is increasing day by day in America. The death toll within a few weeks was estimated to exceed 2,000. Recorded temperatures in New York’s history have never been seen to exceed 40 degrees. Temperature rise is not a problem; but the city was not equipped to handle the heat and humidity.
Insufficient air and cramped living spaces will have exacerbated the temperature problem, so people succumbed to the heat. Imagine such a heat that people leave their homes and start living in parks. Sounds weird, right? Unfortunately, those people were not lucky enough to live in an air-conditioned environment like us.
According to The New York Times, the loss of life was related to humidity.
The humidity effect left by the air that dropped a few degrees in the second week of July was seen as the main thing that killed people. People were caught exhausted and died between 7 and 10 in the morning. The entire city slept in Central Park and Battery Park, trying to avoid suffocation at home.
A few days later, temperatures rose even higher outside of New York. Boston found 40 degrees, while Bangor, Maine, Nashua, New Hampshire saw 42 degrees. When you say people are dying, don’t think it’s just the heat. The number of people who died while trying to escape from the heat is too high to be underestimated. The number of people who drowned while jumping headfirst into the ocean, lakes and rivers exceeds 200.
Fire hydrants were activated to cool the streets.
While the streets of the cities were soaked, the brewers were distributing water in barrels to the parks. As the asphalt melted, it became sticky. On July 28, The Times’ nature correspondent reported that it was impossible to find green leaves on trees.
Before long, the heat wave, which killed thousands of people, ended with a storm. Temperatures dropped by 20 degrees. The only precaution we can take against the unbearable heat we live in today is not to go out. According to the latest news, Berran Kırmızıgül, who suffered a cerebral hemorrhage due to sunstroke while delivering distribution at the PTT in our country, passed away.
It is life-threatening to stand in the sun without precaution by saying “nothing will happen” in hot weather. Don’t forget to take your precautions while the desert heat affects a large part of the country.
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