Alfredo Garza Jr. died in his bedroom with two broken air conditioners, on a downtown street in Laredo, Texas, across from a coffee shop and bakery. When his body was found, the temperature in the room was 106 degrees.
Nearby on the same June day, in a small house behind his sister's house, 67-year-old Jorge Sanchez was suffering from the heat with a fan to cool him down, and then succumbed to temperatures that reached 113 degrees. The extreme heatwave also hit another man, still not identified by authorities, who parked his truck on a busy residential street with hazard lights flashing, and died.
Hot weather is nothing new in a place like Laredo, where summer temperatures regularly climb past 100 degrees. But the seemingly endless wave of excruciating, sultry heat that started in mid-June – parked for weeks on end across much of the south and west of the country – presents a new, unknown and deadly danger.
“People are used to going without air conditioning, surviving without air conditioning,” said Dr. Corinne Stern, medical examiner for Webb County, which includes Laredo, in an interview in the autopsy room. “But it's too hot. People let their guard down, and we lost a lot of people because of it.”
In all, 10 people died from heat-related illnesses within Laredo city limits between June 15 and July 3, a toll that is unheard of in this heat-adapted corner of Texas. Although public health officials in several states say a full and accurate tally of how many people have died from recent heat strokes is weeks away, if not months, Laredo's experience suggests the eventual number could be huge – a sign of the future. a future where heatwaves become commonplace public health crises.
Across the country, extreme heat, which can take a toll on the heart, lungs and kidneys, is a leading cause of weather-related deaths. In Texas last year, at least 306 people died of heat-related causes, according to the state health department – the highest annual total in more than two decades. Among them are 158 non-residents, a number that includes migrants crossing the state's harsh terrain. During a heatwave in Webb County, at least two migrants were found dead on a local ranch, according to sheriff Martin Cuellar.
The superheated dome of high atmospheric pressure that has pressured large swaths of the state will likely persist for at least a few more days, forecasters say, pushing temperatures to dangerous highs from parts of California all the way to Florida. And temperature readings only tell part of the story, public health officials warn, because moist air exacerbates heat, making it more difficult for the body to cool down. And in cities like Laredo, it can get hotter as the sun blazes the sidewalks, with little lull in the evening.
Across the country, public health officials have started thinking about new ways to track and respond to heat-related illnesses, to better protect residents, especially those whose jobs require them to work outside. In Louisiana, the state began in April to track in real time the number of people in hospital emergency rooms due to heat—a system similar to that used during the pandemic to stay on top of the Covid-19 outbreak. A similar medical surveillance system has already been launched Virginiaand the California legislature have agreed to build one there.
The goal is to use the data to better educate the public and to direct aid to those with heat, said Dr. Alicia Van Doren, a preventative medicine physician who advises Louisiana on its heat illness prevention program. “We are still in the early stages,” he said, adding that there was still a lot to do — and quickly.
“We already have about 35 dangerous days a year where it's basically too hot to work outside,” says Dr. Van Doren. With climate change, he added, “it is expected to increase to around 100 by 2030.”
Several counties in Texas publish emergency room admissions data for heat-related illnesses, as does the city of Dallas. The numbers reflect what is widely known about extreme heat: As temperatures rise into dangerous territory, the number of people suffering from heat exhaustion or potentially lethal heat stroke increases concomitantly. Most of them are hospitalized is a man of working agereflects the fact that, for many Americans, heat is an occupational hazard.
“It's this data that helps us spread the message,” says Dr. Peter Huang, director of the Dallas County public health department. “Bottom line: The heat is getting worse. Everyone needs to do whatever they can – because we want to prevent people from dying.”
Regions provide free air conditioning to residents who can't afford it, handing it out more than 400 years ago and nearly 300 this year, said Dr. Huang.
There is no such program for Webb County, the vast expanse of nearly shaded ranch land in South Texas that includes the palm-fringed city of Laredo, one of the busiest gateways for international truck traffic to and from Mexico.
Instead, the county has opened more than a dozen cooling centers, organized a “fan drive” to provide fans, and leaned on the system “promoter“well-connected local communities that help officials disseminate important health information through their networks and in community centers.
“It's like an aunt who knows everyone, who gets along with everyone,” said Tano Tijerina, county magistrate for Webb County, describing the approach.
Mr Tijerina said the district was not considering starting a program to provide free air conditioning to residents. “If you're going to start handing out AC, where do you stop?” he says. “We are help, we will help, we will help.” But he added, “we are talking about people's tax money here.”
Nearly the entire population of the city and county is Hispanic, according to US Census estimates, and many residents have lived their whole lives surviving the region's notorious heat. A local meteorologist who has long used the nickname “heat wave.”
“We're used to the heat,” said Armando Acosta, 24, a metalworker in Laredo, as he finished installing a framed shade structure outdoors this week, working in the hot sun. “But the air is suffocating,” he said.
His colleague Cristian Patiño, 32, said each of them would drink around 15 bottles of water during the work day, taking breaks roughly every hour.
Most of the patients hospitalized for heat-related illnesses were workers, but in Laredo the people who died from the latest heat wave were mostly older people who were home alone, and either had no air conditioning or chose not to go out. light up, said Dr. Stern, medical examiner.
“They think, ‘I'm used to this heat,'” he says. “That's what we hear from their families, ‘Oh, I'm used to this heat, I've got it.'”
One victim, a 68-year-old woman, died despite having a working air conditioner in the house. “Her daughter had seen her the night before, to bring her some food, and told her, ‘Mom, turn on the air conditioning, it's hot in here,' and she wouldn't,” says Dr. stern. “Don't want to turn it on, to save money.”
Money was also a major concern at the home of Mr Garza, 61, who died in a room with two broken air conditioners.
She recently dropped most of her work as a vocational nurse, and moved in with her brother, JP, and their 71-year-old aunt, in Laredo's old downtown neighborhood not far from the county courthouse.
The two brothers grew up in a brick house, says JP Garza, 51. “In the 70s and 80s, it was hot,” he says. “But it's a different kind of heat. It's the kind of heat that magnifies the sun above the ants. This is beyond anything we have ever experienced before.”
Brothers don't get along, says the younger Mr. Garza; they fight a lot and often keep to themselves in the small house, where the temperature on hot days is often higher inside than outside.
“We really didn't talk about how hot it was, other than him saying, ‘Oh my, it's so hot,' or ‘Oh my, it's so hot in there,'” Mr. Garza said of his older brother. “I told him, just open the window, get some box fans, blow one in one direction and out the other.” He said his brother bought a fan which provided some relief.
On the morning of June 21, Mr. Garza found his brother passed out on the living room floor. He struggled to wake his brother, using their aunt's cane. “He just looked at me confused and said, ‘Thanks, man,' and went back to his room,” Mr. Garza. “We're not the talkative type.”
Mr Garza said he started to worry in the morning when his brother didn't show up for breakfast and there was no sound from the room. Her sister likes to stay up late, but not that late.
“I told my tia it was starting to get weird,” he said. He knocked on the door around 2 p.m., he said, and then pulled it, but found it was locked.
Finally, Mr. Garza made his rounds outside the house, removed one of the broken air conditioners from the window, and peeked inside.
“I saw him, stiff as a board,” he said, sitting in the shade just outside the room where his brother died. “I never got along with him, but it made me cry, because after all, he is my brother.”