An extended, widespread power blackout in a big city during a major heat wave.
High temperatures are the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States - and worldwide. That's when the electricity is on and working fine.
Now take a big southern city like Houston, Miami, Dallas, or Atlanta, hit any of them with a big storm that trashes the power grid, then bring on day after day of humid heat in the upper 90s or hotter, and you will have a scary number of deaths.
It was bad enough in Houston with Beryl. Over a million households and businesses were still without power days after Beryl struck. Temperatures did rise into the 90s on some of the days following the storm. But luckily, the heat was not really a more intense than normal in the days after Beryl. .
Still, the combination of a lack of power and the normal humid heat of Houston surely led to some extra deaths.
Eventually, experts say, a much more serious combination of widespread power failures and intense heat is inevitable, leading to the risk of deadly disasters that would make Houston's Beryl experience seem like a breeze.
A Washington Post analysis indicated a long, citywide blackout in Houston coming during a severe heat wave would lead to 600 to 1,500 people in the Houston metro area over five days. During a big heat wave with the power grid working as it should, the same heat wave would kill perhaps 50 people.
WaPo is probably picking on Houston in their analysis because the power grid in Texas overall, including Houston, isn't especially reliable. Residents of that metro area are 2.7 times more likely to deal with power outages than the average American.
The hurricane/power outage/heat wave nightmare scenario might be getting more likely due to that usual bugaboo, climate change. Hurricanes are starting to form earlier and earlier in the season, increasing the odds they'll coincide with the worst of summer heat waves.
Plus, those heat waves are getting more intense as the world warms.
Those factors increase the chances that things would be even worse, as things break down in a city pretty quickly when the power goes out.
As the Washington Post describes the scenario:
"When a power outage hits a city, some services immediately disappear. After Hurricane Beryl, stoplights ceased working; some gas stations, which provided critical services to anyone running a generator, lost power themselves and closed. Cell towers not equipped with their own backup power went down, severing thousands of people from communicating with the outside world.
At the same time, experts say, the population instantly becomes divided: Those with power - or the money or means to get it - and those without."
At first, during these heat wave power failures, you get a burst of activity as people search for ways to gas up their cars and generators, find ice, and buy non-perishable groceries.
From there, things keep going south. 911 calls surge as people who depend on ventilators, oxygen concentrators and CPAP machines are screwed without electricity, so their conditions worsen.
Medical clinics won't help. They'll be without power, too. So emergency rooms would soon become swamped.
After a few days, even comparatively healthy people will begin to succumb to the effects of heat. A sort of healthy person can deal with eight or nine hours of hot, humid weather, as long as they get a cooling respite at night.
But with no electricity and no air conditioning, that respite never arrives. Hospitals then become even more overwhelmed.
This isn't just a Houston we have a problem situation. Any major city prone to intense heat waves could suffer just as greatly.
A study separate from the Washington Post's analysis indicates a power outage combined with a heat wave in torrid Phoenix could kill around 13,000 people. A similar situation in much further north Detroit could claim more than 1,500 or more lives.
A medical crisis wouldn't be the only problem. There's violence.
Heat tends to bring out the worst in people, making us more short tempered and for some of us, prone to violence.
Our current socio-economic situation makes this even more of a powder keg. There's a massive and growing gap between the haves and the have nots in the United States.
Some people who are under the poverty-driving thumb of this arrangement might well resort to looting, stealing, robbing. We can't condone that behavior, but we can understand where it comes from in these situations.
If you think I'm being alarmist, just look at the New York City blackout in July, 1977. It hit during a horrendous heat wave. It happened at a time when the United States was in a deep recession.
New York City was in especially dire straights. The unemployment rate was at 12 percent. Inflation raged. Crime rates soared. City services had been severely cut because of the fiscal crisis. There had been large layoffs of teachers, sanitation workers, firefighters and police in New York.
Then, on the hot and humid evening of July 13, 1977, lightning struck four important power transmission lines, plunging New York City into darkness.
That night and the next day, amid extreme heat, New York was wracked by looting and arson. At least 1,000 fires broke out, the majority of them being arson. There were more than 4,000 arrests.
July, 1977 was a dark example of what can happen when power outages, extreme heat and economic disparities join forces.
It's a cautionary tale, one I hope I don't ever have to write about in this blog.
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