Three decades after Chicago’s devastating heat wave left more than 700 people dead, city efforts to keep people protected from extreme weather continue to fall short.
This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of that disaster. Many lessons were learned from the five-day stretch in July 1995, and the city was forced to make changes that included creation of an emergency management department.
But City Hall still fails to take simple steps, including providing enough cool places for people to go to escape the oppressive heat, critics say.
Planning before dangerous temperatures rise needs to be much better, they say. In addition, heat warnings fail to reach the most vulnerable people in the city, the very same people who are left without options to cool off at a location managed by the city.
For the past two years, a group of Northwestern University researchers has studied tens of thousands of data points to figure out who is most likely to get sick or die from extremely hot weather — and what to do about it. They’ve met with numerous members of communities, health professionals and urban planners.
Their goal is to use granular information community by community to pinpoint whether Chicago’s unrelenting heat waves will create stress that puts some people more at risk than others. The researchers will present their findings along with 30 recommendations, including plans for more cooling centers, to Mayor Brandon Johnson next week as part of a ceremony recognizing the anniversary of the city’s deadly heat wave of 1995.
“It’s to save lives but also to improve quality of life,” says Teresa Horton, a professor in Northwestern’s Department of Anthropology, who is involved in the project known as Defusing Disasters. “This gives us information to be proactive for extreme heat events rather than reactive.”
A key piece of the research involved bringing community members into the process to rank the top recommendations, a process that is being finalized.
During each heat wave, advocates for the homeless, seniors and the disabled complain that the city doesn’t have enough cooling locations. And there are almost no options for people to seek relief during hot nights.
Heat-related deaths usually under-reported
More than 1,000 people went to hospital emergency rooms because of heat during a recent three-year period, according to the city. Heat-related deaths continue each year, though the official numbers are believed to be under-reported and the actual tally for deaths are hard to quantify. For instance, the city’s public health department reports only one death from heat in 2023.
The recommendations from the Northwestern-led effort follow ideas from more than three dozen City Council members delivered to City Hall last year to protect homeless people during heatwaves.
Some advocates say the city could learn lessons from Cook County emergency planners, who, for instance, provide 24-hour cooling centers in the suburbs.
The need to act is becoming more urgent as climate change causes temperatures to shoot up worldwide. The hottest summer on record in Chicago was in 2020, and last year the city recorded the warmest year in history. The city experienced an early heat wave last month, part of a trend that points to hotter days and nights both at the beginning and end of summer. Hot nights are perilous for people who don’t have air conditioning or don’t use it because they can’t pay high electricity bills.
The forecast isn’t getting any better.
“Projections show continued increases in extreme heat through the end of the century, making work like Defusing Disasters critical for lifesaving adaptation,” says Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford. “The magnitude of increasing heat over the next several decades is dependent on greenhouse gas emissions. So, a rapid switch away from fossil fuels is necessary to ensure we don’t see the worst warming and impacts.”
The question is whether Johnson will listen to the proposals, which were actually an outgrowth of the city’s own climate action plan. Johnson is expected to join researchers for a gathering at Columbus Park Tuesday to commemorate the 1995 disaster and to hear the potential policy solutions.
Previous research from the city showed trends, including wide variances in heat depending on a neighborhood’s location. Someone living on the Southwest Side may experience temperatures more than 20 degrees hotter than someone living along the lake on the North Side, the city’s research showed.
Last year, Olusimbo Ige, Johnson’s public health commissioner pushed out the city’s top expert on extreme heat, raising questions about the mayor’s commitment to climate-related initiatives.
People on the ground, helping some of the city’s most vulnerable navigate during extreme temperatures, are skeptical.
‘Cooling centers’ that actually are spray sites at parks
While the city recently touted almost 300 cooling centers during the last heat wave, many of them were spray features at parks or were closed on weekends, says Monica Dillon, a Northwest Side volunteer who helps homeless people.
City departments, including the Department of Family and Support Services, pass the buck, she says.
“I’m just not understanding why they’re not more accountable to these vulnerable groups. We’ve seen this over and over. Someone has to step up,” Dillon says.
Centers operated by family and support services have limited hours, Dillon says.
The department, which provides a number of services to the elderly, homeless and others, activates its six community centers as cooling sites during heat waves. One at 10 S. Kedzie Ave. can expand hours into the evening and weekends, according to a statement to the Sun-Times. The other locations typically operate from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The department also operates 21 senior centers that can provide cooling mostly from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., the statement added.
Unhoused people are encouraged to call 311 for help with shelter.
During last month’s heat wave, Dillon says she tried to help an 80-year-old man in a Northwest Side park find a place to cool off. When she called 311, she was told to send him to a senior center that was in fact closed, she says.
Multiple city departments are involved in responding to heat. One of the primary agencies is the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, which was created just months after the 1995 heat wave.
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In a statement, the emergency management office says it “is aware of the Northwestern University-led project Defusing Disasters and has been part of conversations with aldermen, city departments and sister agencies on the dangers of heat and how we can improve our coordination efforts to protect the well-being and safety of our residents, particularly the most vulnerable.”
Other cooling locations may include police stations, park fieldhouses and city college locations. However, sometimes, “there’s not even a sign on the door saying you are at the right place,” Dillon says.
Better heat-related communication needed for communities of color
In 1995, most of those who died lived in South Side and West Side neighborhoods. The city continues to struggle protecting those areas, community organizers say.
“The moment is now for people to recognize how serious this is,” says John Paul Jones, president of Sustainable Englewood Initiatives, who has advocated for his community since the 1980s. “Thirty recommendations is a good start to help the mayor step it up.”
Jones, who is involved with the Defusing Disasters work, would like to see better communication between the city and residents in low-income communities of color. For instance, he estimates that more than a third of residents in his South Side community, Englewood, have little to no access to the internet. Much of the communications during heat waves are web based, he says.
“We’re dealing with the least connected community and a very vulnerable community,” he says.