This was an historically-bad weekend for Oregon
A friend's wife did not survive the heat.
While most of the country probably saw our troubles on the news, likely accompanied by a cute graphic or some banal conversation between the meteorologist and news anchors, this wasn't just an unseasonably hot weekend. No mere discomfort. Not an anecdote to segue to sports news. People died. Scores of them.
A native Portlander pointed out that this was one of the deadliest events of any kind in our history. We are a state with earthquakes, tsunamis, North Korean nukes pointed at us, sixty volcanoes, landslides, wolves, mountain lions, a vast desert, mine collapses, snowstorms, a military chemical weapons depot, and a history of racial and ethnic conflict. We are no strangers to living in danger, but this weekend still managed to be our second-deadliest natural event, and the fourth-deadliest event of any kind (with potential to be #2 once statewide casualty figures are in).
Deadly events, year, and casualties -
Heppner flood, 1903 - 247 died
Steen's Mountain battle, 1867 - 61 died
Battle of Hungry Hill, 1865 - approx 58 died
- HEAT WAVE, 2021 - 45 and counting in Multnomah County alone
Grande Ronde slaughter, 1856 - 43 died
Ben Wright slaughter of Modoc tribe, 1852 - 39 died
I'm not from Oregon originally, so I may have missed a historical event or two.