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Question
#70309. zbeckabee
asks:
How many people died in the "Chicago Heatwave" of 1995?
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gdec1
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In 1995 there were no uniform standards for determining a "heat related death," so officials had to develop them. Edmund Donoghue, Cook County's chief medical examiner, used state-of-the-art criteria to report 465 heat-related deaths for the heat wave week and 521 heat deaths for the month of July. But Mayor Richard M. Daley challenged these findings.Medical examiners around the country confirmed that Donoghue's heat-related death criteria were scientifically sound and endorsed his findings. But perhaps the best measure of heat deaths comes from another figure—the "excess death" rate—which counts the difference between the reported deaths and the typical deaths for a given time period. According to this measure, 739 Chicagoans above the norm died during the week of 14 to 20 July—which means that Donoghue had been conservative in his accounts.
 http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/443213in.html
Aug 31 06, 9:32 PM
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