false 3850 1 <div>On Thursday, July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index, which measures how the temperature actually feels on the body, would hit 126 degrees by the time the day was over. Meteorologists had been warning residents about a two-day heat wave, but these temperatures did not end that soon. When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; the records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had failed, leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. And by July 20, over seven hundred people had perished-more than twice the number that died in the Chicago Fire of 1871, twenty times the number of those struck by Hurricane Andrew in 1992&#8212;in the great Chicago heat wave, one of the deadliest in American history.<br><br>Heat waves in the United States kill more people during a typical year than all other natural disasters combined. Until now, no one could explain either the overwhelming number or the heartbreaking manner of the deaths resulting from the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Meteorologists and medical scientists have been unable to account for the scale of the trauma, and political officials have puzzled over the sources of the city's vulnerability. In <i>Heat Wave</i>, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a "social autopsy," examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been.<br><br>Starting with the question of why so many people died at home alone, Klinenberg investigates why some neighborhoods experienced greater mortality than others, how the city government responded to the crisis, and how journalists, scientists, and public officials reported on and explained these events. Through a combination of years of fieldwork, extensive interviews, and archival research, Klinenberg uncovers how a number of surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown&#8212;including the literal and social isolation of seniors, the institutional abandonment of poor neighborhoods, and the retrenchment of public assistance programs&#8212;contributed to the high fatality rates. The human catastrophe, he argues, cannot simply be blamed on the failures of any particular individuals or organizations. For when hundreds of people die behind locked doors and sealed windows, out of contact with friends, family, community groups, and public agencies, everyone is implicated in their demise.<br><br>As Klinenberg demonstrates in this incisive and gripping account of the contemporary urban condition, the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities that the 1995 Chicago heat wave made visible have by no means subsided as the temperatures returned to normal. The forces that affected Chicago so disastrously remain in play in America's cities, and we ignore them at our peril.</div> 7582 15 7 2003 Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (Illinois) total:107|5:29|4:48|3:26|2:4|1:0| 107 423 181 16 2 0 false false Sun Feb 22 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 11:12:02 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 11:19:00 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Aug 16 12:01:43 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 16 12:12:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat May 02 12:08:41 -0700 2009 Sat May 02 12:11:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Apr 16 09:07:23 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 16 09:15:42 -0700 2008 Enlightening investigation into the Heat Wave crisis in Chicago in 1995. How the political machine's and the media's systemic problems exacerbated the extreme weather conditions that allowed for over 700 people to die of heat related causes. Disproportionate percentages of these people were ...more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Nov 23 15:17:18 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 15:17:51 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sun Dec 23 12:45:51 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 26 04:04:18 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sat Oct 06 10:15:07 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 06 10:19:21 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Aug 13 05:11:29 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 05:14:07 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jun 28 16:57:05 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 28 16:58:04 -0700 2009 2 0 true false Sun Nov 16 15:33:54 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 03 14:07:08 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jun 17 22:22:50 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 17 22:27:29 -0700 2008 Seriously though, I got alot out of this book and it makes you ponder who suffers in natural disasters and what sections of society mana...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun May 13 12:19:32 -0700 2007 Sun May 13 12:23:44 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 25 07:54:17 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 25 07:56:58 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun Aug 12 20:21:06 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 12 20:21:58 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Tue Jul 01 22:29:48 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 22:30:54 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Sun Nov 11 23:33:30 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 12 00:09:34 -0800 2007 0 0 false false Sun Nov 01 19:07:49 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 01 19:07:49 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Sat Oct 31 19:21:55 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 31 19:21:55 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Oct 31 10:26:28 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 31 10:26:28 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Oct 19 10:19:49 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 10:19:49 -0700 2009