August 10, 2021: Long, Hot Summer -

A few days ago, the Oregon Medical Examiner released the names and home addresses of the 96 people who died as a result of the late-June heat dome. According to the OPB article on this:

“The Medical Examiner had sought not to release the information, citing the confidentiality of death investigations. But the attorney general found that the public interest in the cases and the need to understand policy failures that contributed to the deaths justified releasing the records.”

The article included a map with little red pins marking the home address of each victim (leaving out those who lived in their cars, yet another tragedy). But it doesn’t have that map anymore, so you can’t go click on the pins now. I don’t know why the map disappeared. Actually, whole sections of the article disappeared between the original posting and the revised edition, four hours later.

Still, if you want to say their names, you can still open up a .pdf listing every name and address (and the race and ethnicity) of the victims, but it’s in no order I can discern. Sections are alphabetical, and then it becomes random for a while.

I did click on some of the pins, when that map still existed. Don Dyrhaug died six blocks from my house. Don was white, and his ethnicity was non-Hispanic.  Rose Pham died out on 136^th. She was Asian, and her ethnicity was unknown. Ricky Runninghawk lived in Canyon City. His race on the pdf is listed as American, and his ethnicity, too, is listed as unknown. Sarah Harrison Torres died a block from my church. She was white and her ethnicity was Hispanic.

(Those “unknowns” threw me. It took me a while to see that the “Ethnicity” was meant to differentiate Hispanic versus non-Hispanic. I know that the COVID pandemic hit Hispanic, Black, and AAPI communities particularly hard, so I am okay with the Medical Examiner - and all sorts of other entities - tracking this information in the interests of equity and racial justice, but it’s very clunky language.)

Even in its revised form, the article is a heartbreaker, particularly when it quotes Vivek Shandas, a professor from PSU who “studies climate change adaptation and urban heat.’ He said, “This is the list that I have been working for the last 15 years and trying to not see.”

So here we are, with the forecast for Portland over the next three days at 100, 106, and 104. It will be hot, and a friend who had been planning to visit decided to take a raincheck (so to speak). I think that was wise. And 106 is really hot, but it’s not 116. (There are still people who want to debate whether Portland hit 116 or 117. I am not one of those people. Either way was awful.)

The good news is that even on those hot coming days, the forecast is for the city to drop down into the 60s or 70s each night, which didn’t happen during the heat dome, when temperatures stayed sky-high all night. So most of us should be able to sleep.

Other good news on the micro level: our basement no longer smells like garden chemicals, and we now have eight fans (2 box, 2 standing, and four window), plus one portable air conditioner (meaning it’s on wheels, which is good because you would not want to heft it). If you need to come hang out during the worst of this, let me know.