In July 1995, weather reports in Chicago started warning residents about an incoming heat wave. It was going to be hot – around 100 degrees – but nothing that was unheard of for a Chicago summer.
That heat wave turned out to be one of the deadliest in recorded U.S. history.
More than 1,000 people died across the larger region. In Chicago, Black residents made up half the deaths. Many were older people who had succumbed inside their homes, as they tried to ride out the sweltering heat.
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