ridiculous heat

[Soul Stream]

Every year athletes die from these silly summer workouts in ridiculously high temps. Just saw the news yesterday showing all the University of Texas football players about to drop, practicing in 110 degree heat. The quarterback was laughing saying, "Hey, it's really bad out here. But I especially feel sorry for these linemen." (cut to show overweight linemen running around in 110 heat ).

Of course, the next news story will be about which kid dropped dead from it. (cut to coach, "We do everything possible to take care of these kids in this kind of heat, blah, blah, blah).

When temperatures get this ridiculously high, two-a-day workouts in the blistering sun should be suspended. When are these guys going to learn. It's just plain unhealthy no matter who you are.

[jazzbo]

Al, that's how I remember it too: 1980 incredibly hot, then snow and ice in January 1981. . . . Extreme!

[BruceH]

The End Times are here, people!! Really, the weather has been freaky here too. For the last couple of weeks, up until a couple days ago, it has been sunny, hot, and humid in SAN FRANCISCO! Now usually in SF you get cold fog and/or cold Pacific winds all through the Summer months. Then it clears up for two weeks in late September/early October for some Indian Summer weather, but still not a HUMID heat. Heat with humidity is something folks around here are NOT used to. Of course, compared to Summer in New England it's still not bad, but for here it's been a freak show. Meanwhile, people are dropping like flies in Europe....it's scary.

[JSngry]

Yeah, it was 1980. My bad. Guess I suffered brain damage from the combination of a house with no AC and my antidote, which was filling up the car, getting a 6 pack of Mickey's Big Mouths, and cruising around with the windows rolled up and the car AC totally cranked until the sun went down and things cooled off some. Did that pretty much every day.

Kids, don't try this at home....

[catesta]

Yeah, you and Johnny could get together and have dinner out, compare jazz collections, and then argue about politics until they threw you both out of the restaraunt! (Hint: don't eat at the Space Needle; it's a long fall!)

Seattle was already not on the short list, you just gave me another reason why.

[J Larsen]

93% humiditiy in NYC today. I golfed in the Bronx this afternoon. By the time we were done, I had sweated through every article of my clothing, including my leather glove!

[brownie]

Temperatures have been over the 100s in Paris for the past ten days. And the 'experts'

now predict it's going to continue into September. Worst heat wave in France since 1947.

Problem is that this kind of hot weather is pretty unusual around here and air

conditioning is still a rare commodity.

The only positive aspect is the wine crop. The 2003 vintage should be excellent.

[slsmcgrew]

Yeah, you and Johnny could get together and have dinner out, compare jazz collections, and then argue about politics until they threw you both out of the restaraunt!  (Hint:  don't eat at the Space Needle; it's a long fall!)

Seattle was already not on the short list, you just gave me another reason why.

Seattle is a great area. You are 3 hours from the ocean. About 1 1/2 hours from the mountains for snow skiing. Lots of lakes and the sound for water sports. We have one of the best Jazz clubs around. Besides, hadi-blues, PD and I live in the area.

[JSngry]

Juat what IS the sound for water sports, anyway? SPLASH?

[Big Al]

And then, just to prove how silly the weather is down here, it rained all day yesterday, and the temperature didn't get above 90.

Reminds me of when I was delievering pizzas as a teen, standing on one side of highway 360 in the sun, watching it rain on the other side of the highway. Weirdest thing I ever saw!

[Jim Alfredson]

Here is good ol' Lansing, Michigan we've had a pretty mild summer as far as temps are concerned. Seems to be plenty of rain. There haven't been many big t-storms, though. I love me a good thunderstorm.

I'm hoping we have a nice long indian summer since this summer has flown by so quickly.

[Jazzmoose]

Juat what IS the sound for water sports, anyway? SPLASH?

In Seattle it's "oh look, it's raining again!"

But seriously, I agree with slsmcgrew; it is a great area, or at least was back in the 60s and 70s. I understand there are waaaaaay too many Californians up there now, though...

[slsmcgrew]

Juat what IS the sound for water sports, anyway? SPLASH?

Sound as in Puget Sound.

[JohnS]

London reached 100 yesterday.

[mikeweil]

I love me a good thunderstorm.

Don't forget to check the roof of your new house! Or was that the first point you checked before buying?

Besides that, none of you American fellow posters seems to pity the ridiculous heat that covers all of Europe for two months now, with forests buring all around the Mediterranean Sea, new heat record marks all over the place. The ozone concentrations are triple the ones regarded harmless. No rain in sight for weeks to come. Night life like in Italy in German towns, which is not bad after all, but who can afford to sleep all day and work all night? I'm glad I'm going to the highest part of the Black Forest next Sunday for a week, accompanying a dance therapist and giving some drum lessons, it's considerably cooler up there....

[Aggie87]

To add onto what mikeweil and brownie said, it's been VERY hot here in Stuttgart as well. Over the past 7-10 days, it's hit 38 C (100 F) on a couple of occasions. While that may not seem that terrible to many people in the U.S., it's also easy to overlook that almost all homes/businesses have no air conditioning, as it's normally not needed. Many people have died due to the heat this summer.

You have any extra room in your Black Forest residence, mike? B)

[JSngry]

Juat what IS the sound for water sports, anyway? SPLASH?

Sound as in Puget Sound.

Is Puget Pungent?

[brownie]

That heat in Paris? I knew it was murder!

From AP:

Heat Wave Kills About 3,000 in France

PARIS - About 3,000 people have died in France of heat-related causes since abnormally

high temperatures swept across the country about two weeks ago, the health ministry

estimated Thursday.

It was the government's first official death toll estimate. One of the few

organizations to issue an estimate, France's emergency hospital

physicians' association, had earlier this week said the death toll was at least 100.

"We can now state what's happening to us is a veritable epidemic," Health

Minister Jean-Francois Mattei said on France-Inter radio.

Over the past few days, various city and regional governments had issued

death estimates in their areas. The national government said it was working

to compile full, nationwide figures.

Morgues and funeral directors have reported skyrocketing demand for their

services since the heat wave took hold. General Funeral Services, France's

largest undertaker, said it handled some 3,230 deaths from Aug. 6-12,

compared to 2,300 on an average week in the year — a 37 percent jump.

The ministry said its estimate was partly drawn from studying deaths in 23

Paris regional hospitals from July 25-Aug. 12 and from information provided

by General Funeral Services.

According to 2002 figures, the Paris regional hospitals that were surveyed

could have expected some 39 deaths a day, the ministry said. But on Aug.

12 this year, during the heat wave, they recorded nearly 180, it said.

"We note a clear increase in cases beginning Aug. 7-8, which we can

regard as the start of the epidemic of deaths linked to the heat," the health

ministry said in a written statement.

Many of the victims were elderly, and Mattei said the high death rate was a

result of an "exceptional" heat wave combined with an aging population.

Health officials say August is often a time when elderly people find

themselves alone, when their families go on vacation.

"They are often alone in Paris when their families go away on holiday," said

health ministry spokeswoman Laurence Danand. "There are a lot of elderly

people alone in big cities in August."

Danand said an exact figure would be released next week on the number of

heat-related deaths, based on a survey of all private and public medical

institutions, including retirement homes.

On Wednesday, days after the first complaints accusing the government of

a slow response to heat-related deaths, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin

asked the Paris region to launch an emergency hospital plan to provide for a

massive influx of patients.

Mattei also acknowledged "difficulties" for the government in managing the

surge in temperatures, but said that hospital staffers were performing in an

"exemplary" manner in response.

The government "carried out the responses that were needed" as soon as

the first cases of heat-related death appeared about a week ago, Mattei said.

"We didn't just remain inactive," he said.

Paris City Hall said Wednesday it had taken extra measures to ensure that city-run

funeral homes would remain open to bury bodies on Friday, a holiday in France,

and recall more than 30 municipal workers from vacation.

To protect the elderly, the city government's 13 retirement homes bought extra

fans and atomizers to keep their residents cool in a country where air conditioning

is not widespread.

Record-high temperatures have been set in numerous cities across France, and

the capital has baked under heat exceeding 98 degrees. The average August

temperature in Paris, which has warm but not torrid summers, is 75 degrees

Fahrenheit.

[brownie]

Up.

Up, up and away.

The death toll from the heat wave in France is now said to reach 10,000.

From AP:

PARIS (AP) _ The death toll from a blistering heat wave in France this month has most likely climbed to 10,000, the government minister for the elderly said Thursday.

Hubert Falco, speaking after a Cabinet meeting, told reporters there was no specific figure yet available, but that "most probably" some 10,000 people had died.

Falco was the first government official to confirm estimates released a day earlier by France's largest chain of undertakers that the death toll from the heat, when temperatures topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), could reach 10,000.

Funeral home chain OGF, which holds about a quarter of the market, said it had counted 2,600 more deaths in the first three weeks of August than in same period of last year. It estimated that figure meant that more than 10,000 people died nationwide.

On Monday, Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei said it was "plausible" that as many as 5,000 people had died during the heat wave _ the largest such government estimate until Thursday.

Falco said he would not resign over the crisis.

"I come from rugby country," Falco said. "In the face of adversity, we pull our elbows together, we push, we fight and we work."

[Claude]

It's time other european governments count their deaths. Until now, Germany, Italy, Spain and other speak of 50-100 deaths. But the heatwave did not stop at the french border.

It also appears that this is more a social than a medical problem. It's too easy to blame it on the lack of staff in hospitals. Most of the elderly people who were brought to hospital were dehydratated and could have survived if somebody had prevented it.

[brownie]

Claude, newspapers and many officials in Spain now talk about at least one thousand dead.

Italy is also slowly waking up to the unusually high death figures.

[Rooster_Ties]

Almost impossible to imagine that so many people could die because of something as simple as the heat.

Have there not been heatwaves similar to this before?? I understand that there have been record-breaking temperatures, but still - you'd think that there might have been something similar to this that might have occured within the last 10 years, that would have prepaired people and governments to realize that shelters with air conditioning need to be opened, and free electric fans need to be given out, as we do in this country when such a crisis occurs.

Very difficult to understand how the deathtoll could be so incredibly high.

[Aggie87]

According to some of the reports in the German news, this has been the longest, hottest summer in Germany (or at least southern Germany) in something like 120-130 years. I'm not sure how the government would have been able to prepare for something like this.

It is rather hard to believe so many have died from the heat. But if you've ever been over here you'd see that air conditioning simply doesn't exist in most homes, businesses, or offices. It's the exception more than the norm. I don't know much about heat-related deaths, but I'd guess that many, if not most, of them have been the sick and elderly.

It's not a localized epidemic either, so doesn't seem to have been a concerted, focused effort to do anything about the heat.

It has cooled down a bit here in the past 4-5 days, though, and there has been a little bit of rain, so it's certainly more comfortable than it was.

[Dan Gould]

This is exactly what happened in Chicago a few years ago, though I think that the lower death toll is related to both a shorter heat wave and a quicker government response (although it was slow at the start, no one went on vacation in the middle of it)

[brownie]

Almost impossible to imagine that so many people could die because of something as simple as the heat.

Have there not been heatwaves similar to this before??

The previous worst heat wave in France was in 1947. The 2003 one was as fierce but what made it exceptional was its length:

two full weeks with temperatures over 100 degrees F (40C). In Paris, the death figures rose after two nights when temperatures

did not go below 78 degrees F (25.5C).

This of course happened during the month of August when practically everybody in France is on holidays.

The majority of victims were eldely persons who were left alone in their overheated apartments.

Air conditioning in private apartments is practically unheard of here since the summer temperatures rarely reaches

the 2003 highs for more than one or two days.

The fact that the current government reduced the help to unpoverished elderly persons earlier in the year is

probably a factor that will explain the unprecedented death figures.