The Greatest Killer in New Orleans Wasn’t the Hurricane. It Was the Heat. (original) (raw)

U.S.|The Greatest Killer in New Orleans Wasn’t the Hurricane. It Was the Heat.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/us/new-orleans-hurricane-ida-heat.html

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A huge power failure after Hurricane Ida left vulnerable residents in sweltering apartments for days. At least 10 deaths in the city have been tied to the heat.

National Guard members distributed ice outside a community center in New Orleans on Sept. 1. The city was without power for days after Hurricane Ida made landfall.Credit...Johnny Milano for The New York Times

Sept. 15, 2021

NEW ORLEANS — In many ways, Iley Joseph’s one-bedroom apartment was an ideal place to ride out a hurricane. It was on the third floor — much too high to flood — of a building that was sturdy and new, part of a sleek, gated community for older residents like him.

But in the days after Hurricane Ida, his home began to feel like a trap. The huge power failure that cut off electricity to New Orleans rendered Mr. Joseph’s air-conditioner useless and his refrigerator nothing more than a cupboard. Even worse, the outage froze the complex’s elevators in place, sealing him inside the building because his health problems prevented him from using the stairs.

Mr. Joseph, 73, insisted in telephone conversations with his sons that he was doing just fine. But in his apartment, No. 312, it kept getting hotter. On Sept. 2, the fourth day after the storm hit — the hottest yet — a friend found him lying still on the side of his bed.

“I call his name, he doesn’t respond,” said the friend, Jared Righteous. “I realized he was gone.”

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Iley Joseph, left, with his older son, Iley Joseph Jr., and grandson.Credit...via Iley Joseph Jr.

Only in recent days, as the last lights flickered back on in New Orleans, have officials here discovered the true toll of Hurricane Ida. Unlike in the Northeast, where many who perished were taken by floodwaters and tornadoes, heat has emerged as the greatest killer in New Orleans.

Of 14 deaths caused by the storm in the city, Mr. Joseph’s and nine others are believed to be tied to the heat. Experts say there are probably more. And friends of those who died have begun to ask whether the government or apartment landlords could have done more to protect older residents before they died, often alone, in stiflingly hot homes.

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