[texianyankee]

An excerpt I should have included in the original post...

".......Mayor Richard M. Daley and many of his Cabinet members set off on summer vacations, returning to Chicago only after dead bodies began piling up at the morgue. In the absence of its leaders, the city failed to pull its forgotten heat-emergency plan from the shelf. Local emergency managers refused to call in additional resources to help with the unfolding health crisis, even though paramedics and ambulances were readily available......"

[Howlin]

The 1995 Chicago heat wave, when a blend of extreme weather, political mismanagement, and abandonment of vulnerable city residents resulted in the loss of water, widespread power outages, thousands of hospitalizations, and 739 deaths in a devastating week.