One Hot City: Minneapolis, MN

Posted 10 August 2007 by Benj in Facing Climate Change, Field Notes

According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, extreme heat events kill more people annually than all other natural disasters combined. Northern cities are particularly vulnerable to the projected increase in number, intensity and duration of heat waves. We recently returned from Minneapolis where we gathered material to illustrate how heat waves disproportionately impact elderly, low-income, minority and chronically ill populations. A big thanks to everyone at Hennepin County Medical Center, the City Health Department, Open Arms, the Disabled Immigrant Association, Minnesota Visiting Nurse Agency and our family and friends for helping to make this trip a success. (For those wondering, we left Minneapolis the day of the tragic bridge collapse. We interviewed the construction crew working on that bridge a couple days prior.)