SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Most of the country is in the throes of a major summer heat wave. In Chicago, the multiday extreme heat warning reminds some of a 1995 heat wave that killed more than 700 people. But as Alex Degman from member station WBEZ tells us, the city has made some changes since then to prepare for this type of extreme weather.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
ALEX DEGMAN, BYLINE: It's 90 degrees at Chicago's Navy Pier. The heat index is making it feel like 104. A handful of tourists and locals are making the best of it around the splash pad at Polk Bros Park. Chicago resident Maddy Lannon has family visiting from Philadelphia. She's standing in the middle of the pad as water shoots every which way and her kids, nieces and nephews run around.
MADDY LANNON: It is so hot outside. We needed some water. We went to the Children's Museum, and now they're all playing around and trying to beat the heat.
DEGMAN: But 30 years ago in the city, that splash pad didn't exist. Neither did cooling centers. Today, the city receives daily heat emergency reports and can quickly reallocate resources. But 30 years ago, 739 people died over the span of a week in July. Chicago Fire Department Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt was a field supervisor during that time. She says she still carries a lot of that trauma.
ANNETTE NANCE-HOLT: I remember going into a house of a senior. And that person was sitting in a chair, and they were deceased. The temperature in there was unbearable. They had a ceiling fan going, and they had the window open. It was like a furnace in there.
DEGMAN: Many of those who died in 1995 were poor or elderly. Some had no air conditioning. Others had it but couldn't afford to turn it on. Since then, Chicago has worked to prevent such heat deaths, especially as climate change drives up global temperatures fueling more intense heat waves. Building codes now dictate residential high rises over 80 feet high and apartment buildings with 100 units or more must be air conditioned when it's hotter than 80 degrees or they need to have a cooling center on site.
In 2008, the city released the Chicago Climate Action Plan. It requires reflective roofing on new buildings. And the city plants trees every year, especially in areas where they're more scarce. These efforts and others were designed in part to lessen the urban heat island effect that can boost temperatures. Densely populated areas tend to be hotter due to development that traps heat, like high rises and industrial air conditioners and dark asphalt.
RICKY CASTRO: You have, you know, plenty of portions of cities like Chicago that have older road infrastructure. So it's kind of hard to say you can make a tremendous difference.
DEGMAN: National Weather Service meteorologist Ricky Castro cautions against giving too much credit to one effort to cool things down. Even so, downtown Chicago is right on Lake Michigan, which can mitigate the heat island effect by making it cooler, but only if the wind's blowing the right way. And this week, it isn't. The 1995 heat wave did help change how the National Weather Service forecasts heat. It implemented a new system of heat watches and warnings that's still in use today. A heat wave that deadly has not happened again. And in this decade, Chicago has averaged three to four heat-related deaths every year. Still, the city is keeping watch, even though residents are used to extreme weather - hot in the summer and cold in the winter.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
DEGMAN: Back at Navy Pier, resident Maddy Lannon wades into the debate that Chicagoans often have.
Would you rather have 90 degrees and humid or 10 degrees with a wind chill?
LANNON: That's a great question. I think it's the 90 degrees for me.
DEGMAN: So you would do this over a day in January in Chicago?
LANNON: Yeah.
DEGMAN: The sweltering heat will remain in Chicago until at least Friday morning. It's expected to end nationwide by early next week.
For NPR News, I'm Alex Degman in Chicago. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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