Perhaps instead of ‘American Idol’ there is need for a new program on ‘American Wimps’. After reading this I practically broke out laughing:
Utility companies were still struggling to restore power. By Thursday evening, electricity had been restored to 160,000 customers in St. Louis, but new reports of outages kept coming in. The day’s high temperature was 97 degrees, but the humidity made it feel like 111.
The evacuated residents were taken to “cooling centers” after leaving their homes.
“We can’t overemphasize the danger of this heat,” Mayor Francis Slay said. “The longer the heat goes on and the power is out, the riskier it is.”
I just can not get the image out of my mind of long lines of Conestoga Wagons crawling across the prairie with A/C water dripping out the back; or of the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ with a rush of cool air from the built-in heat pump as you step through their door…
This is a bit of warm weather guys. Get real. A/C has only existed in the typical American home for a couple of decades. I grew up without it. I cannot even remember anyone in our town who had it.
We lived through days like this with little more than a comment to the neighbors over the back fence. We kids ran about playing baseball in humid 90 and 100F July days. Our parents made dinner in the unairconditioned kitchen and worked in the garden with little more than a sunhat.
Am I the only one who finds the above article… embarrassing?
It’s kind of wimpy, but not that wimpy. I mean, sure the pioneers didn’t have no lame-assed air con, but then the pioneers, err, died rather a lot.
And anyway, those pioneers had it pretty easy, what with their metal tools, machine-woven cloth, preserved food and lame-assed ‘matches’.
The Indians – now they had to do it the hard way.
But yeah, it’s kind of sad that the national guard has to deal with an air-con outage.
I grew up in Southeast Texas during the 40’s – 50’s. We had high temps, humidity and hurricanes.
My dad made a fan system to pull “cooler” air through the house at night. Otherwise heat was the norm during the summer.
Hell no, I hate hot weather! I am an airconditioning addict. Freezing cold weather does not bother me at all but heat just kills me.
The problem is old people. There are a lot more old people then there used to be (advances in medical science etc…)
Whenever these “heatwaves” come through there’s always a couple of old people that kick off, and it’s too horrible for the average American to contemplate that someone’s grandma died for lack of AC.
I don’t think many wheelchair-bound octogenarians with rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and whatever else were riding Conestoga wagons.
Thats at least one thing us westerners can learn from the arabs. How to keep cool without resorting to aircon. I’m not talking about todays arabs who have aircon blowing snow out their ears, but the medieval arabs who were good at building buildings that were cool during the day and warm at night.
That most be what Israel is doing! They are improving the ventilation of buildings in Lebanon!
Could be worse. At least we’re not reading about a lot of older Americans dieing from the heat while their children and granchildren are at the beach vacationing.
I hate air conditioning. Unless you don’t have AC, and never leave your house, it makes it impossible for your body to naturally adjust to the higher temperatures in the summer. Constantly going in and out of buildings with AC on completely destroys my breathing, just like going back and forth from warm to cold air during the winter, and mucks up my sinuses. And yes, this proves that Americans have become a bunch of whingers.
It’s pretty pathetic all right. Hell, I live in Arizona and I’ve never had AC. My electricity has been down for 5 hours in the afternoon for two days running now (electrical storms) and my family has survived just fine. It does help that we live in 100 year old house that was designed for desert living, rather than one of these styrofoam and chicken-wire modern monstrosoties.
Some people just don’t seem to know the difference between dry heat and summer humidity. 100 degrees in Arizona or the ME is a piece of cake compared to 100 degrees in high humidity.
I have to second or third the comments about this being mostly about old people.
Most of the thousands who died in the 2003 European heat wave were elderly.
You may have a good point. I grew up in a small town filled with houses that were built for the climate rather than stamped out of a mold. Our family house was brick externior and some air space. I can remember my mom opening windows and doors in evenings, morning and night, to get cool air in and the house staying reasonable through the noon day heat.
I just do not remember any particular discomfort and summer’s were just as hot then… we nearly always got a couple 100+ Fahrenheit days during the summer, and mid-high 90’s were *normal* for July and August.
The point about adjusting is important too. Your body *does* adjust if you let it do so.
As to the old folk… they just sat out on the porch in rocking chairs, chatted with the neighbors and told your parents if you were doing something you shouldn’t.
I say you’re right about this, Dale.
No, that is what air conditioned CARS are for 🙂
Sorry but my Norman-Viking blood is optimised for brutal cold, not steaming heat.
Yes, it is embarassing. But not because there are some people who may not be able to withstand a heat wave.
It is embarrassing because, in this ever so concerned nanny state, everthing is a humanitarian crisis requiring the mobilization of all avalable social resources to come to the aid of our poor, incompetent citizenry, who couldn’t possibly be expected to withstand something as horrible as—hot weather.
It is a symptom of a very embarrassing disease, indeed. In a recent movie it was termed “failure to launch”.
In the cruel, unfeeling terms of those of us who expect adults to be adults, and accept the responibilities of that station, it is a form of infantalism. Sexually, it means deriving sexual pleasure from acting as an infant.
Either way, it’s getting off—the hook.
The story does say that this is about the elderly
What’s so horrible about that? I suspect the National Guard was actually called in to prevent looting during the blackout and help with the clean-up:
So, Dale why don’t you try reading some of the things you link to before posting?
Physically, I’m with Perry — crank up the A/C!
Philosophically, I must point out Shaw’s quote that “Reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world … Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Most Samizdats and readers are likely fans of modernity and not so keen on facing the troubles our grandparents did.
My goodness! Bitching about the lack of A/C doesn’t make Americans wimps. Not beating the crap out of foreigners who make fun of us might though. Just a thought.
I think Dale is on to something here.
I also recall alot of activity when it hit the 100’s. Me, I grew up on a farm, so I was always out active and sweating and in my case, in long jeans.
Perhaps the case is that kids and parents were more physically fit and therefore bodies were more able to tolerate the heat. As for the pioneers, nothing like walking across the midwest to melt away the extra pounds.
Am I the only one who finds the above article… embarrassing?
It’s a bit embarrassing. Then again, it’s the media. Those guys could make a cockroach in the kitchen look like a national health disaster. It’s what they live for and they’re good at it.
I think that NY is trying to avoid a French-style mass die-off of old people.
While I agree with both of the above comments, it is a question as to when the elderly became the resposibility of the National Guard.
Are they going to declare martial law at the home?
I wonder how residents of Belfast (highs in the mid 60’s, according to weather.com) would make out if the temperature there jumped up by 50 degrees and their air conditioning went out.
Very high temperatures are a serious matter, especially for people who aren’t used to them. Sure, old people are most at risk, but every year we have healthy young hikers die in the Southwest US because they didn’t understand how to cope with extreme heat. Being “wimpy” isn’t what gets them, overconfidence is. They stay active in the middle of the day, don’t drink water because they’re “saving it,” dress inappropriately, etc.
Wimpishness just doesn’t come into it…..& today’s ‘old people’ aren’t the same as yesterday’s. When I was a kid, some stories began with: “An old man of 60 was walking down etc” We simply don’t live in the yesterday world & some have carelessly forgotten it’s survival skills. Like Perry, I’m all for what modern creature-comforts, like AC, are available and have AC here but, should it malfunction I know that jalousies should come down etc.
It’s not for nothing that folk in hot places build thick walls with small windows & have inner shaded courtyards. They also know how to clothe themselves to the coolest advantage.
As in so many things, (viz: the late Harry Browne’s “Freedom”) we have either lost or carelessly ignored basic principles & skills.
That doesn’t make us wimps….it makes us plain stupid.
“As to the old folk… they just sat out on the porch in rocking chairs, chatted with the neighbors and told your parents if you were doing something you shouldn’t.”
Or, more realistically, they simply died off at, oh, Age 60 or so. Average life expectancy during the 1800s was what, about 40? (38.3 in 1850, 47.8 by 1900)
“While I agree with both of the above comments, it is a question as to when the elderly became the resposibility of the National Guard.
Are they going to declare martial law at the home?”
Protecting lives and property during Emergency and Natural Disaster has been part of the State Mission for the National Guard since it’s inception. Treating the elderly for heat exhaustion isn’t really any difference from pulling people off roofs during a flood, shipping in food after a hurricane, or rebuilding a bridge after an earthquake.
Also keep in mind that we no longer live with the doors and windows open and nothing but a screen door keeping out unwanted visitors. The elderly are most at risk in the heat, but not even the heartiest families can’t live in an unairconditioned hermetically sealed house with continuous days of 105 degree weather and lowes in the 90s.
Geesh. I’m declaring a humor-impairment emergency and evacuating this thread.
I imagine any of our lads over in Iraq are pissing themselves over this story… 105F is the cool of the evening for them.
I do not have any sympathy for persons who lack even the knowledge and survival skills to live in their own home town, or hikers who are so ‘overconfident’ (read stupid) that they do not take the trouble to understand their surroundings.
I did not grow up in 1850’s (move forward a century) and people still did know how to live comfortably and safely in their parts of the North American continent. The really old folk in my youth were up in their 70’s.
Also, I would class folk who hike in the Southwest mid day sun and do not take lots and lots of water with them (have you ever had that strange tingling sensation as the air sucks the water right out of your skin?) with folks who go jogging in puma country and think the big cats are cute (assuming they even see them while doing their very best impression of being a sick prey animal) and drunks who try to pet an alligator.
it’s evolution in action.
Whoever said people didn’t know how to live without airconditioning? The issue is not lost knowledge, but how we as a society have chosen to live today, and it is with the presumption that airconditioning is available. That’s why building are designingned and built as they are, why windows and doors don’t usually have burglar bars, and why we typically work 9 to 5 instead of on a siesta schedule.
I’m also fairly confident that our young healthy troops who are in peak condition realize the difference between their situation and expecting their grandparents, their babies, and their sick relatives to live the same way without losing quite a few of them.
americans you really are sad bastards people in the rest of the world can do without air conditioning
Tiocfaidh ar lá
Belfast
I share some of Dale’s annoyance at wimpishness although I can also identify with Perry’s love of AC. My father, who used to be a wheat farmer, would be happy to describe the absolute misery of sitting on an open-top combine harvester, surrounded by wheat dust, cutting corn in 90F degrees, or, to change crops, hoeing sugar-beat in the heat. Anyone who has worked on a farm will know what I mean. More recently, my old man bought a John Deere combine with full AC, music system, the works. The machine was more luxurious than a Mercedes saloon car to drive. Bliss.
The fact is, progress is a great thing and we should celebrate it. By all means let’s not fall prey to wimpishness, but there is nothing wrong with wanting to get away from some of the suffering our ancestors have had to deal with.
It is a mathematically proven fact that there is a 1 to 1 corellation between a people who are ignorant dickheads and people who call others “sad”.
Commenter ‘C’ is a prat.
In tropical Singapore, it can get very hot too. 33 degrees celsius, not as bad as Dale’s 100F, but bad enough with our perennial high humidity.
I agree with the point somebody made about air-conditioning. Some folks in the teachers’ staff room would often crank their air-con down to 18 degrees celsius when the outside temperature was almost twice that. Not only does that drive up the electricity bill, which just pisses me off, but some of them even wear jackets(!!!) to stay warm while turning down the temperature, and quite a few often fall sick as a result of the rapid temperature change when they exit and enter the staff room.
My advice(oft-unheeded) was to simply keep the AC at 26 degrees celsius. Cool enough not to require jackets, comfortable enough for people to work productively, warm enough that the temperature differential allows people to adapt faster to the outside temperature. It saves electricity and money, is more healthy, and makes more sense!
Unfortunately, even the educators of our young often lack even the most basic common sense.
Hush children!
It’s too hot to quibble.
Oh besides, C wont be back.
He’s exausted his entire vocabulary already.
I am equally embarassed. You realize, however, that money exchanged hands for services provided and, well you get it. This was just about making money-for air conditioning providers and their retinue.
-A.
I believe the problem is the urban landscape. It gets REALLY REALLY REALLY hot in the urban jungle, and it just doesn’t cool down much at night. That blacktop and brick just love to absorb heat and give it up after sundown.
So, even though I usually leave my AC off here in the Baltimore, MD suburbs, I completely sympathize with those people in NY City. It must be hell.
Don’t forget, they have no electricity, either. Which means, nights must be very dangerous.
I can see it being a major problem for asthmatics and the physically disabled, being w/o air conditioning in the summer time. But for me alone, it’s nice to use when it’s available, but not an absolute life or death necessity.
I think we as humans, are making a mountain out of a mole hill with this!
Wimpy. Yeah. I’m sure the 15000 French who died several years ago of heat exhaustion were equally wimpy. You show your residence as Belfast. Oooohhh, that’s practically the Sahara.
Old people in Paris are dying again. 23 so far.