Hundreds are believed dead in heat wave gripping Pacific NW
SALEM, Ore. — Many of the dead were found alone, in homes without air conditioning or fans. Some were elderly — one as old as 97. The body of an immigrant farm laborer was found in an Oregon nursery.
As forecasters warned of a record-breaking heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada last weekend, officials set up cooling centers, distributed water to the homeless and took other steps. Still, hundreds of people are believed to have died from Friday to Tuesday.
An excessive heat warning remained in effect for parts of the interior Northwest and western Canada on Thursday.
The death toll in Oregon reached at least 70, with the number in Multnomah County, which encompasses Portland, at 50. Washington state authorities have linked more than 20 deaths to the heat, but authorities said that number was likely to rise.
In Oregon’s Multnomah County, the average victim’s age was 67 and the oldest was 97, according to county Health Officer Jennifer Vines.
In a telephone interview Thursday, Vines said she had been worried about fatalities amid the weather forecasts. Authorities tried to prepare as best they could, turning nine air-conditioned county libraries into cooling centers.
Between Friday and Monday, 7,600 people cooled off amid the stacks of books. Others went to three more cooling centers. Nearly 60 teams sought out homeless people, offering water and electrolytes.
“We scoured the county with outreach efforts, with calls to building managers of low-income housing to be checking on their residents,” Vines said.
But the efforts weren’t enough, she said: “It’s been really sobering to see these initial (fatality) numbers come out.”
Oregon Office of Emergency Management Director Andrew Phelps agreed.
“Learning of the tragic loss of life as a result of the recent heat wave is heartbreaking. As an emergency manager — and Oregonian — it is devastating that people were unable to access the help they needed during an emergency,” he said.
Among the dead was a farm laborer whose body was found Saturday by fellow workers at a nursery in rural St. Paul, Oregon. The workers had been moving irrigation lines, said Aaron Corvin, spokesman for the state’s worker safety agency, Oregon Occupational Safety and Health, or Oregon OSHA.
Oregon OSHA is investigating labor contractor Andres Pablo Lucas and Ernst Nursery and Farms, which did not respond to a request for comment. Pablo Lucas said the man who died was from Guatemala, but he declined to comment further.
Reyna Lopez, executive director of a northwest farmworkers’ union, called the death “shameful” and faulted both Oregon OSHA for not adopting emergency rules and the nursery.
This week’s heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change.