MEMPHIS, Tenn. – It’s the kind of heat that takes you back 45 years to memories of Memphis in the summer of 1980.
That July, the city hit 100 degrees or hotter for 15 days in a row. Memphis’ hottest temperature ever recorded was 108 degrees, and it was set on July 13 of that year. Nights didn’t bring much relief, with temperatures stuck in the low 80s. That stretch of heat turned deadly. By the end of the month, 83 people in Memphis had died from heat-related illness. Most were elderly, low-income residents living in inner-city neighborhoods without air conditioning.
A year later, in 1981, a public health investigation published in the American Journal of Public Health looked into what went wrong. The study found that the majority of those who died were elderly Black residents living in poverty. Many lived in small apartments with poor ventilation and no AC. Some had no fans. Many kept their windows shut at night because they were afraid of crime. The report made it clear that it wasn’t just the heat that killed people. It was a lack of access, a lack of resources, and a lack of a plan. Memphis didn’t have cooling centers back then, and there was no emergency response in place. The neighborhoods hit hardest had more pavement, fewer trees, and stayed hotter longer…