What I remember of that heat wave was
one particular pundit describing it as an anomaly in which – for a few days –
weather conditions shifted to the point where Chicago became Saudi Arabia.
AS IN FOR those days, we had the kind of
heat they routinely experience in the deserts of the Middle East. There, the
locals know how to cope with it.
In Chicago, we were caught off guard –
resulting in the 485 official fatalities due to the heat (and the city Health
Department estimate that some 739 people in excess of the norm had died).
Now what does any of this have to do
with the extreme cold we’re expected to suffer through in coming days?
For all I know, some people are looking
at the prospect of a “20-below” temperature (as in Fahrenheit, not Celsius) and
wishing they could have a blast of 100-degree-plus heat. The Chicago Teachers Union on Sunday was already demanding that the Chicago Public Schools be closed, and schools officials complied late in the afternoon.
BUT MY POINT is that we’re getting a
jolt of weather that usually isn’t typical for this part of Planet Earth. I’ve
seen the term “Chi-beria” used to describe what Chicago will experience (as in
Siberia), while others are saying we will have temperatures lower than the
Arctic Circle.
As in the North Pole.
No wonder Santa Claus makes a point of
rushing around the world to give away presents. He’s freezing his red-clad butt
off the rest of the year.
We’re going to be cold. We’re being
advised to stay indoors as much as possible. A brief trip to the supermarket on
Saturday saw me having to deal with endless lines – even though I was just
trying to use the “express” to pick up a couple of items.
I WASN’T ALONE in wanting to NOT have to
make the trip (which in my case can be as short as a one-block walk to a Jewel,
longer if I choose to shop at a different store) in the potential chill of
10-below.
Let’s only hope that people have not
only been paying attention to these advance reports, but that they’re taking
them seriously.
I’m sure we’ll have a few people who are
convinced that the weather reports are a whole lot of hype, and will say to
themselves, “How cold could it actually get?” If too many people take that kind
of attitude, that is when we have the potential for the body count to increase.
Although
I’ll be willing to concede the one significant difference between the two
situations.
MUCH
OF THE body count in 1995 was among elderly people who lived “shut-in” type
lives who should have got out of their inadequately-cooled homes and found some
place cooler to pass the time.
The
coming days will be a case where we all will be encouraged to live the “shut-in”
lifestyle. So long as we don’t get some sort of outage that causes people to
lose heat, we should be capable of coping.
Except
that in severe weather, there’s always the possibility of an outage – and the
fact that the inclement weather will interfere with emergency crew efforts to
rectify the problem.
The
real question might be whether we experience a record low – bottoming, so to
speak, the conditions of Jan. 20, 1985. That was when a 27-below temperature
combined with 25 mile-per-hour winds for a wind chill of 77-below.
WE
GOT THROUGH that blast (also from the Arctic that swept its way across the
nation, just like what’s happening this week). I’m sure we’ll make it through
this one too -- and hopefully without any record-setting for fatalities.
Even
if it means we’re going to have to put up with exaggerated stories for decades
to come from people feeling the need to prove their fortitude by telling us of
how they braved the cold of the coming days.
-30-
EDITOR'S NOTE: Take your pick. It's thoughts of "Summertime" coming in just a few months that will get me through the next few days! Or, you can consider Gov. Pat Quinn's advice for coping with the next few days.
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