Extreme heat kills more people in the U.S. than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods or any other weather-related disaster. Advocates said Indiana lawmakers need to do more to protect people from getting their fans and air conditioners shut off in the summer.
Indiana ranks 31st in energy affordability. That means more disconnections and people choosing to forgo things like medicine to pay their electric bills.
Denise Abdul-Rahman founded the nonprofit Black Sun Light Sustainability and is the Indiana NAACP’s environmental climate justice chair. She said her family faced shutoffs when she was a kid and a teacher friend of hers died from a heat-related illness.
“She suffered from asthma. The school didn’t have air conditioning where she worked and taught, you know, and she died because of a severe attack on the job,” Abdul-Rahman said.
Black, Indigenous and Latino Hoosiers are especially vulnerable because they’re more likely to live in older, less energy efficient homes. Rural Hoosiers often don’t live near services like cooling centers. But even wealthier Hoosiers can face energy insecurity – 6 percent of people making $100,000 a year or more reported getting disconnected by their utility.