shockedcanadian
Diamond Member
- Aug 6, 2012
- 43,977
- 43,018
- 3,605
Sad, but a reality in Canada.
People dying of heat. Disgusting really, while the S.I.C takes all of our resources and crushes our economy and reputation.
www.thestar.com
NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. — Tracey McKinlay insisted she was fine before saying goodbye to her sister and hanging up the phone.
The temperature hadn’t fallen below 20 C in three days, and McKinlay’s apartment at the Legion Manor, a subsidized building for seniors operated by B.C. Housing and the Legion, was a hot box. The 61-year-old lived on the tenth floor, in a small, east-facing studio where the morning sun would stream in through a wall of windows — only one of which could be opened. She had no air conditioner.
It was June 2021 and the heat dome settling over the normally temperate lower mainland would soon break temperature records and make headlines. The provincial coroner would later find extreme heat contributed to hundreds of deaths. Ninety per cent of the victims were, like McKinlay, 60 years and older. Most also had a chronic health condition and lived alone in old, poorly insulated housing without air conditioning. McKinlay ticked all the boxes.
“We knew the heat dome was pretty nasty,” said Jeanne Hansen, McKinlay’s sister. “We were checking in. That day, she said she’d gone out for her walk, that she was OK, that everything was fine.”
McKinlay hadn’t told her sister that her fan — the only thing keeping her cool — was broken.
The deadly temperatures in June 2021 spurred B.C. to the forefront of Canada’s fight against extreme heat. The province developed an early warning system that sent alerts to cell phones. It said it would spend $30 million on a new program to give 28,000 air conditioners to medically vulnerable and low-income people by 2026. It updated the provincial building code to require cooling in at least one room in new buildings, among other measures.
People dying of heat. Disgusting really, while the S.I.C takes all of our resources and crushes our economy and reputation.
Hundreds died from extreme heat in B.C. Four years after the province promised relief, many are still vulnerable to the ‘silent killer’
Advocates are concerned the province is not moving fast enough to protect seniors from the next life-threatening heat wave.
www.thestar.com
NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. — Tracey McKinlay insisted she was fine before saying goodbye to her sister and hanging up the phone.
The temperature hadn’t fallen below 20 C in three days, and McKinlay’s apartment at the Legion Manor, a subsidized building for seniors operated by B.C. Housing and the Legion, was a hot box. The 61-year-old lived on the tenth floor, in a small, east-facing studio where the morning sun would stream in through a wall of windows — only one of which could be opened. She had no air conditioner.
It was June 2021 and the heat dome settling over the normally temperate lower mainland would soon break temperature records and make headlines. The provincial coroner would later find extreme heat contributed to hundreds of deaths. Ninety per cent of the victims were, like McKinlay, 60 years and older. Most also had a chronic health condition and lived alone in old, poorly insulated housing without air conditioning. McKinlay ticked all the boxes.
“We knew the heat dome was pretty nasty,” said Jeanne Hansen, McKinlay’s sister. “We were checking in. That day, she said she’d gone out for her walk, that she was OK, that everything was fine.”
McKinlay hadn’t told her sister that her fan — the only thing keeping her cool — was broken.
The deadly temperatures in June 2021 spurred B.C. to the forefront of Canada’s fight against extreme heat. The province developed an early warning system that sent alerts to cell phones. It said it would spend $30 million on a new program to give 28,000 air conditioners to medically vulnerable and low-income people by 2026. It updated the provincial building code to require cooling in at least one room in new buildings, among other measures.
