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Over 3 times the normal number of sudden unexpected deaths were reported for BC between June 15 and July 1st.
The majority were seniors living alone, and were found dead by friends or family members checking on them. Where they lived usually had all windows closed, no A/C, and were hot.
On the worst times, it would take the coroner, who has to see a body in pace, 11 hours to get to someone, there were so many calls.
The coroner has said that she fully expects that the number will rise as more people are checked on.
It is expected that autopsies will show most died from heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
The number of wild fires has risen dramatically, with over 80 over Friday night alone. Most are now caused by dry lightening strikes, human caused (eg throwing a cigarette butt away, or from the hot pipes under a car or ATV driven over dry grass).
Everywhere is tinder dry.
The Lytton fire is now almost definitely thought to have been caused by brake sparks from a train.
The heat is continuing
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Awful isn't it Sylvia, I suppose they will now be pressing for all homes to get some form of Air con. They said the windows were closed, would it have made any difference if they were open if the air outside was hot as well? Or maybe it would have made a slight difference?
My Mum died in 1994 after one of our heat waves was just tailing off, she had an aortic aneurism. She had said to me on the phone a couple of says before that she couldn't stand the heat and was sitting in her north facing lounge with the curtains drawn. No Air con here of course (she was 85). Temp was probably in the 90s
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No, Ann
I doubt very much they will try to enforce air conditioning.
....... and they cannot force it to be installed in older houses. Our house is about 85 years old, and it would be very expensive to get it installed.
It is indeed possible to have the windows open as long as it is cooler outside than inside.
You can buy portable air conditioners for about $300 to $800, but they use a lot of electricity, and you have to be able to move them around. Fans are the much cheaper alternative, and can be very effective.
We use stand-alone fans, both towers that stand on the floor or ones that sit on a table or sideboard. The smaller ones even come as small as personal fans that could sit by the side of your computer as you work.
Your mother was in the best place in a north-facing room, but she could have opened the curtains and the window during the day time, and then closed the curtains as the sun came round in the late afternoon and evening.
That is actually what I do .............. this room where I have the computer is south-facing. It is comfortable enough for me to work for an hour or so on here in the morning and then in the evening, with window and curtains open. Far too hot in the day.
I spend the days in the front room, faces north, curtains open, front door open if it isn't too hot but closed otherwise, and with 2 tower fans that I can use if it gets too hot (as it did last week). The sun starts heating up that room about 5 or 6 pm.
BUT the authorities do their damned best, always have done, to get people to know that they need to DRINK much more water during a heat wave, and to get air into the house.
It does no good to drink coffee or alcohol, hot tea as they used to drink out in India or Africa might be helpful, but cold or cool water, some fruit juices are best. Too much sugary pop is NOT very good. I keep a jug or bottle of cold water in the ridge at times like this ........... the water out of the tap does not run as cold as I like it when the heat has started to penetrate the ground and the buried water pipes/
It is actually a fallacy about not opening windows to keep the heat out.
The truth is that air will move from the cooler to the hotter ............ so if it is hotter inside the house, opening the window will allow cooler air to flow in.
The need is to keep the sun from blazing in through the windows.
So, what we now do is open the patio window of this south-facing window as soon as we get up in the morning, leave the curtain closed except for a small gap. Close the curtain completely when the sun has moved round and is shining in through all windows, but leave the window open.
At least one window in every other room is open, but curtained until the sun has moved away from that side, or curtain closed if it on the east side. Our house has windows facing north, east, south and west, so we have an almost ideal situation where we can get cross draughts going.
But the most important call is for everyone to check their elderly relatives, friends and neighbours, especially those who live alone.
Doesn't matter if you don't know the name of the elderly person in the house next door or the flat upstairs, check on her or him to make sure they are OK.
It is believed that almost all of these sudden deaths were found by relatives or friends checking them, but no word on how frequently that had been done. Once a week isn't enough
In addition, municipal councils are all now providing cooling places of various kinds as soon as something like this is forecast, and have done for several years
Fire hydrants can be turned into drinking fountains ........ the water supply to the hydrants comes from the same supply as our drinking water, and Vancouver does that in certain areas where they know there are low income people without good places to live. It's quite neat what they do ...... there is one on a corner in the local shopping area where people without good homes or homeless often congregate (peacefully and quietly!). The top of the hydrant has a brass tap which can be unscrewed and replaced with the sort of drinking fountain that you see in public places. The valves needed for attaching hoses in case of fire are still there and not affected.
Libraries and community centres are now usually air conditioned, so they are opened up for people to go to cool down, with sitting areas and drinking water provided, and people are allowed to stay as long as possible. Malls that are air conditioned are asked to stay open longer to allow people in there, even if the stores are closed.
That is applying even now ........... the Dome of Heat is moving east, but that doesn't mean that the weather has cooled here.
We are actually in what we would have called a heat wave before last week ............ daytime temperatures about 24-27C at the moment.
The big difference is that it is cooling down to 18 or 19C at night, unlike the 24C or above of last week, so it is much easier to sleep.
Edited to make it clear that sugary pops are NOT very good.
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Sylvia, is it a dry heat or a humid one?
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maggie ......
it's humid, we're at sea level.
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Oooh - yuk! Dry heat is much more bearable.
You can't escape from humidity. :-(
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I know!!!!
The cabin we used to own was about 800 km north of Vancouver, and about 1,000' elevation, in the Interior of the province.
We used to get 30C days there in July or August, and had to keep in the shade, but it was dry and much more bearable.
Even Death Valley 40C+ was bearable in the shade for brief periods!
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Hate the humidity...we'll going to feel like 42 tomorrow but then it will cool down again. Agree with everything Syliva said, and also in newer houses you'll have insulation in the walls and the windows are meant to reflect the heat away from the sun I believe. We actually only have three windows on our South side of the house to stop the heat during the summer. The basement is freezing with the AC on.
Walking dogs isn't great in those temps either so tomorrow I'll go really early then the rest of the day backyard or quick pop down the road only.
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I agree .......... we do have pink batt insulation to a high number in our house, but not those modern windows.
It's strange, the weather was very different when we built the addition, so to have so many windows in the room facing south was considered good, and a great room to grow house plants in.
It could get warm on some days in summer if we were out and the windows closed, but opening the window immediately we got in allowed the air in and the room soon cooled down enough for us to sit in here.
30C days were hardly even dreamt off back then ........ but we did get colder winters and more snow.
Now the reverse has happened.
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