Deaths of 3 women at senior facility in early heat wave raise questions, fears

CHICAGO >> Temperatures barely climbed into the 90s and only for a couple of days. But the discovery of the bodies of three women inside a Chicago senior housing facility this month left the city looking for answers to questions that were supposed to be addressed after a longer and hotter heat wave killed more than 700 people nearly three decades ago.

Now, the city — and the country — are facing the reality that because of climate change, deadly heat waves can strike just about anywhere, don't only fall in the height of summer and need not last long.

“Hotter and more dangerous heat waves are coming earlier, in May ... and the other thing is we are getting older and more people are living alone,” said Eric Klinenberg, a New York University sociologist, who wrote “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago” about the 1995 heat wave. “It's a formula for disaster.”

The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office has yet to determine the causes of death for the three women whose bodies were found in the James Sneider Apartments on May 14. But the victims' families have already filed or plan to file wrongful-death lawsuits against the companies that own and manage the buildings. The City Council member whose ward includes the neighborhood where the building is located said she experienced stifling temperatures in the complex when she visited, including in one unit where heat sensors hit 102 degrees.

Part of the problem, experts say, is that communities nationwide still are learning how deadly heat can be.