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Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (Illinois)

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Do you remember the heat wave in Chicago in 1995? The rail lines folded, electricity went out with rolling blackouts, some streets even buckled. The heat was over 100 degrees, rarely dipping below the 80's at night, and the humidity near 100%. But what most people don't remember is the horrific human death toll during that time. Over 700 people were killed in that heat wave that lasted nearly a week. But while the author looks deeply into the horror of this natural disaster, he mainly concentrates with precision on a few separate areas:

First, that heat waves kill more people annualy than all other types of natural disasters combined. Yet they receive little public attention mostly because they fail to generate the massive property damage and fantastic images produced by other weather-related disasters.

Second, most of the people that died were the elderly and poor, who died at home, with their windows often sealed or even nailed shut to prevent rampant crime in their areas. They had no air conditioning because they could not afford it, and little or any access to any social help because of their economic situation.

The author also looks into how the city of Chicago didn't come to grips with what had happened until the heat wave was well over, and that because of the social structure where the affluent have ample protection from such massive natural disasters, the elderly, infirm and poor will likely remain having none. And while dealing with the aftermath is much more costly, governments choose not to prepare for them with social programs which are often viewed as liberal pork or government waste.

A fascinating, well written book. It also contains many images, some of which appear is if taken from somewhere like Somalia. Eric Klinenberg is an sociology professor at Northwestern University.

What weather phenomenon kills the most people in America? Hurricanes? Tornadoes? Floods? Add those up and they will still not total the deaths attributed to the real killer: heat waves. The other phenomena yield good pictures, and that is one reason you don't hear much about heat deaths. But according to Eric Klinenberg, an assistant professor of sociology at New York University, there is another, more subtle reason. Victims of a heat wave "are primarily social outcasts - the elderly, the poor, and the isolated - from whom we customarily turn away." In _Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago_ (University of Chicago Press), Klinenberg has looked at the week-long heat wave of July 1995, which killed over 700 people. (Another comparison: the famous Chicago fire of 1871 killed about three hundred.) In Chicago, the heat hit up to 106 degrees, with a heat index over 120. Cars broke down in the streets, and bridges, rails, and roads buckled. Even with the windows open, brick homes could heat up to 120 degrees. The heat killed, but it did not just kill randomly. In clear, objective, but often biting pages, Klinenberg shows the patterns of urban life that brought death to certain regions and certain social groups.

One group was the elderly, clearly disproportionately killed by the heat. This might be attributed simply to their bodies having fewer physiological resources to protect them. Indeed, the government of Chicago tried to explain the deaths of elders this way; the heat only culled those who were going to be dying soon anyway. There is no medical evidence that this was the case; they simply were unconnected with society, and when they died alone in their rooms, it was long before absences were noticed. Klinenberg argues forcefully that the Chicago government, at different levels, did not respond to the disaster as it would have a big fire or a train wreck. When deaths mounted, Mayor Daley was able to frame the issue as a "debate" about the rising number of deaths, when there was no scientific controversy about the matter. Human Services Commissioner Daniel Alvarez did a classic move of blaming the victim, saying, "We're talking about people who die because they neglect themselves. We did everything possible. But some people didn't want to even open their doors to us." The media also come in for criticism. They took up the artificial controversy generated by the mayor about whether the heat deaths were "real" or not. There was little analysis about which regions were being the most affected and why, and the official city version of how little could be done against an act of God was repeatedly parroted. By the time the reporters did a comprehensive story, it was "old news" and didn't run.

No one was more forgotten than forty-one victims whose bodies no one claimed or cared about. They languished in the county morgue until August, when they were buried in a huge common trench in a potter's field. Visiting the site in preparation for the book, Klinenberg learned that a few reporters had come now and then to see it, but no Chicagoans and no family members. Social and governmental forces can't control the heat, he reminds us, but they can make deaths easy to overlook and forget. His book is a pointed effort to keep that from happening.

Eric Klinenberg's new book "Heat Wave" gives readers a tremendous insight into the Chicago heat wave of 1995. He approaches this tragedy from several fronts. He begins with an account of what happened during the several days of stifling heat and continues with a look at the social impact of living and dying alone, why certain neighborhoods lost more people than others and exposes a city ill-prepared to handle the mounting number of deaths. Klinenberg continues with an assault on the politics of Chicago, the response of the mayor and those around him and finishes with an adept look at the media's role and response to the deaths of over 700 people.

Although at times the author writes in a dry style he nonetheless portrays the Chicago heat wave as a catastrophic failure on many levels. Klinenberg gets down to the root of some socio-economic problems that beset Chicago and tells us the "whys" of their causes. Many things stood out as I read this important and often scary book, but one thing kept coming through....although heat waves are discriminating killers the solutions are there if right decisions are made at the right times, by governments and citizens alike.

A sad and ironic end to "Heat Wave" is told in the form of a senior editor at The Chicago Tribune who decided to relate this tragedy from both a human and social side. As Chicago cooled down his work went on. Unfortunately, only a small part of the story was ever printed as the paper decided that in the chill of November few readers would be interested in a story that had occurred during the blistering heat only a few months before.

I highly recommend this book. It is a service to help us understand what happened during July of that year. As the author points out, this could happen again.

Dr. Klinenberg helps us as readers, citizens, and media-watchers reconceptualize heat waves as meterological disasters to social ones. He argues that such a reconceptualization allows us to understand that society is responsible and SHOULD be responsible for deaths. The brillant part of his book is that he does not pin the blame on any one person, one entity, or one organization. He shows how residents of neighborhoods, the spatial organizations of neighborhoods, politicians, local and national governments, the media, and even history play a role in why these deaths occurred and why the numbers were as significant as they are. Thus, we are all responsible!

The book looks at the phenomenon through more than just through the lens of statistics. His ethnographic work helps to look at the lives and qualitative nuances of the numbers. We hear the explanations and the critiques of the residents in the neighborhoods that were hit the hardest by the heat wave deaths. In addition, KLinenberg places their voices in conversation with reporters at the time, insiders of the Daly regime, public health officials, and even police officers. Therefore, we see the phenomenon from both the "official" and "unofficial" sources.

Anyone who is an activist, an academic, or a citizen of any American city should read this book. It will change your perspective on how urban areas really operate and SHOULD operate.

This book will make Dr. Klinenberg one of the foremost scholars of our time.

Countless movies and books have been based on natural disasters. After all, what is more powerful or awe-inspiring than an F5 tornado, blowing away heavy machinery as if it were nothing? Who isn't slightly alarmed at the possibility of a dormant volcano suddenly erupting and blanketing a sleep mountain town in lava? But sociologist Eric Klinenberg's Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago examines a quieter, less thought about natural disaster: heat waves. More specifically he examines the famous heat wave that hit Chicago in 1995, ultimately causing over 700 deaths. Furthermore, he examines how, in this day and age, so many people could be so profoundly affected by something that we would appear to have a handle on. The main aspect Klinenberg brings up is that of social isolation and how this pervasive trend could end up ultimately costing us our lives. But how does something like this happen, he wonders; how, with all of our modern technology and community outreach programs are people still "left behind." Furthermore, who are these people and how is it that our society puts certain people in these positions. With a comprehensive account of the event and the culmination of his own data, Klinenberg presents are very interesting view on social constructs in the context of natural, momentous events that are out of human control.

Klinenberg's investigation of the conditions and outcome of the 1995 tragedy deals with issues of human interdependence and examines the importance of local and regional communities in preventing future catastrophes of this kind. Heat Wave takes a natural phenomenon and penetrates to issues of economic and social depravity, the echelon of neighborhood that one resides and the solitude that extends from those circumstances.

Klinenberg does a wonderful job of introducing us to the social conditions that were necessary for the disaster in Chicago to take place during the summer of 1995. The conditions, we learn, were primarily spatially problematic. I don't want to give too much away - but I'll say this: with dense urban environements, this disaster never would have happened. The North/South Lawndale experience was especially effective. Klinenberg kept me going almost all the way through the book, so I highly recommend it. I only give him 4 stars because he loses the idea of density at some point and harps (too much, IMO) on the media. That's fine, though: he did his research, and this book is excellent.

The only think I would add to what has been said already is that this book should be strongly considered for courses that emphasize the interaction between medicine and public health. Unlike other books written about the urban condition, this book focuses on a single public health problem and presents it from both scientific and sociodemographic perspectives. Medical and public health students alike stand much to gain by reading this book.

Heat Wave was one of the required readings for my class on medical sociology, and it is almost single-handedly responsible for sparking my interest in public health. Klinenberg takes an in-depth look at the patterns of decay underlying what seemed to be isolated and exceptional deaths, and in doing so, at the role of community and society in health.
He manages to combine methodological discussion, neighborhood history, statistics, personal accounts, and sociology into a narrative of a local disaster that goes beyond the news stories and the simple assumptions that can be made about a string of hot days. It's a thought-provoking read, especially for anyone interested in public health or on the front lines of healthcare.

If you like nonfiction that reads like a page-turner, you will love this book. Klinenberg examines this amazing event in Chicago's history from every possible perspective: meteorological, historical, political, economic, sociological, anthropological, geographical. It's a brilliant work and reads a lot like "The Perfect Storm" in that you learn about a fascinating and true event, but you learn so much more, in unexpected directions. Highly, highly recommended.