Deaths of three Chicago women prompt urgent heat warnings

Veldarin Jackson Sr talks about receiving the call that his mother, Janice Reed, had died, with his wife, Adjoa Jackson, left, in Chicago. Photograph: Jose M Osorio/AP

Temperatures barely climbed into the 90s and only for a couple of days. But the discovery of the bodies of three women inside a Chicago senior housing facility this month left the city looking for answers to questions that were supposed to be addressed decades ago and are causing alarm as the planet heats.

The city – and the country – face the reality that because of the climate crisis, deadly heatwaves can strike just about anywhere, don’t only fall in the height of summer and need not last long to be a threat.