Chicago Magazine Marks 20th Anniversary of Killer Heat Wave

With the summer’s cool temperatures and endless rain, it’s hard to imagine that 20 years ago this month Chicago turned into a hell furnace.

Chicago magazine features an oral history by Mike Thomas on the city’s deadly heat wave that killed 739 people, most of them poor and elderly, when temperatures climbed into the triple digits, July 13 through July 15, 1995.

Major players, including meteorologist Tom Skilling, officials from the Daley administration, cops, paramedics, medical examiner technicians, community activists, neighbors of the deceased, and reporters share their memories of Chicago’s worst heat wave in recent memory.

The city was essentially caught unprepared and by the time various government agencies and departments put together the big picture that a disaster was unfolding, hundreds of bodies were stacked up at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. The only person who didn’t submit to an interview was the former Mayor Daley, who instead is quoted from a July 17, 1995 press conference, two days after the heat wave broke:

“It’s hot. It’s very hot. Yesterday we broke records. We all have our little problems, but let’s not blow it out of proportion. It is a crisis. It’s hot out there. We all walk out there. It’s very, very, very hot. It’s like getting heavy snow. It’s like getting real cold weather. Yes, we go to extremes in Chicago. And that’s why people love Chicago. We go to extremes.”

Mayor Daley, downplaying Chicago’s killer heat wave that essentially caught his administration unprepared during a City Hall press conference.

Chicago magazine’s oral history also includes an interactive map showing the growing number of fatalities during each day of the deadly heat wave.

If you lived in the city in July 1995, you can probably add your own narrative of elderly neighbors dying in their homes, kids prying loose fire hydrants (3,000 fire hydrants were illegally opened) or the guy in the back alley lighting off Roman candles with a Bic lighter.

Read the full story here.