History of heat waves

 

As a doc, I have treated heat stroke several times: Usually in people who were heat stressed and then were exposed to a hotter climate than they were used to. I treated two people in Massachusetts in May when hot weather hit: One was an elderly lady brought in because she was confused, but the other was a young man out jogging who came in convulsing... I don't know if he made it. And another case was when our Pennsylvania NatGuard unit was doing our two week training in southern Virginia: It was 104 and one guy from the mountain area of Pennsylvania came in confused.

A lot of us are laughing at Europeans saying you will die if it goes over 90. Heck, they never lived in Texas. However, the heat is the reason the French take the month of August off, and because they don't use airconditioners, they have a lot of people dying of the heat.

Here in the Philippines, we are used to heat in the 90s, but yes it was pretty hot last week until the typhoon moved nearby and gave us four days of heavy rain. The worst time is before the Monsoon hits in June: once the monsoon comes in the late afternoon we have thunderstorms that cool things off.

But then there is heat exhaustion.

In heat stroke, your body temperature regulation stops working, you stop sweating, and your body temperature soars (105 is not unusual).

In heat exhaustion often you see dizzyness, fatigue, confusion etc. and often people collapse: their blood pressure goes up and they have a stoke or it goes down and they have a heart attack. And to make things worse, diarrhea is common in the heat: from food poisoning or just viruses that go around. This can kill babies.

When our NatGuard unit did our two weeks in the Idaho desert, I would go around making sure people drank water: a pint an hour at least. So we had few problems.

Here, of course, the problem is partly working in the hot sun, both farmers and those repairing the road nearby (we made sure they had ice for their water) or working construction.

but the main problem is those inside small homes in urban areas, which tend to be hotter. Many have fans, but not everyone. And some have to get water from the common pump so may not drink enough. And many elders have high blood pressure which can go up from the heat.

As for children: Here in our rural area, usually moms breast feed, but older infants and moms who work and formula feed the kids, it means they are in danger not just from heat but from unclean bottles and diarrhea.

Local instructions here.