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Remembering the Heat Wave of 2006
By
Kapil Desai
Published Nov 16, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Kapil Desai
Published Nov 16, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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With autumn in full swing and the weather continuing to cool, it’s easy to forget just how scorching and unbearably hot this last summer was at times. Between Starbucks’ quickly rescinded free drink offer and the multiple “cooling” centers set up around the city, the whole time seems like a convenient blur now.
But Newsday reports that as the City continues to tally the death toll from the heat wave of 2006, the number is much higher than we anticipated and keeps that time in our memory a little bit longer. Forty deaths is where the death toll had settled (which was already a record setting number, beating the original set in 1952) but the latest estimates place the figure at closer to 100. An additional 60 people died during the last few days of July and the first week of August, owing to underlying heart and lung disease – conditions that predisposed them to really do poorly in the heat. Lest you forget, we had three straight days of at least 100 degree weather (1 degree per death) followed by a week where the mercury never dropped below 90. Here’s to a brutally cold winter.
An Accuweather graphic from July 31
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Kapil Desai
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