CLIMATE: Weather with a Vengeance: Heat, Storm and Flood

In New York City, where the temperature last Thursday surged to 104° ice-cream sellers made up for a lot of their losses suffered during the blackout. Said one good-humored vendor "Now this is an act of God." Less than five months after the worst winter in memory finally relaxed its strangle hold the eastern two-thirds of the nation was racked by a heat storm that harried citizens, strained power, drained water supplies and threatened crops.

So many people crowded the banks of the Charles River in Boston, where the high was 102°, that it seemed like any summer Sunday afternoon; actually it was midnight last Wednesday, and the beantowners were just looking for some late-night relief. But not in the city's "Combat Zone," where one prostitute lamented her lack of trade: "They don't want to do it now—it's too hot. They all want air conditioning. You think I got air conditioning?" In Detroit, workers at the big automobile companies asked the same question. As temperatures in the foundries rose to nearly 130°, they were sent home or, in some cases, walked out on their own. At the White House, Press Secretary Jody Powell had to explain why Jimmy Carter wanted to lunch alfresco in 93° heat: "It's an old Southern tradition to sweat in your food."

Concentrated Devastation. Mid-July temperature records were cracked in more than a dozen cities, making newspaper weather listings read like hospital-ward fever charts. Before the heat wave began to break at week's end, New York sizzled through nine straight days of above-90° temperatures; Boston, six; Chicago, eleven; Washington, ten. In a normal year, about 175 Americans die from the effects of hot weather. This year the count is just beginning, but the latest Red Cross estimate is that several hundred have died from the heat—and it's a long, long time from now to September.

The wicked weather also brought drought, flood and one major tragedy In Johnstown, Pa. (pop. 41,000), site of the deadliest deluge in U.S. history,* a seven-hour thunderstorm produced floods that left at least 46 people dead more than 50,000 homeless and an estimated $200 million in damages.

While it did not match the flood in concentrated devastation, the heat wave caused woeful damage. In Minneapolis, about a hundred marchers and spectators at a summer parade were treated for heat prostration. With the heat wave came an atmospheric inversion that sent air pollution indexes soaring in many cities. The result: New York's weekly death rate jumped by nearly 10%.

Water pressure dropped ominously as sweltering city dwellers illegally opened fire hydrants to wet themselves down. Utility companies set power-output records in Milwaukee, Boston, New York and other cities, and air-conditioner salesmen could scarcely keep up with demand. Newspaper-headline writers warmed to the occasion. The New York Daily News ran, AT 102°, WE'RE A BAKED APPLE, and the Boston Globe, ON THE 5TH DAY OF SIMMER.