Skip to main content
Thursday, October 29, 2026Oct 29
Subscribe
All Sections
Search
More

This story is free to read.

Northwest heat wave targeted vulnerable, tested climate prep

Karen Colby listens on July 22, 2021 in Portland, Ore., while her neighbor Joel Aslin tells how he called an ambulance for her when she got heat stroke as temperatures reached 107 F in her small fifth-floor studio apartment during a record-breaking heat wave in June. The unprecedented heat, which reached 116 F in Portland, killed dozens of people in Oregon and hundreds across the region and was a wake-up call for the normally cool region as climate change accelerates. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus)
Karen Colby listens on July 22, 2021 in Portland, Ore., while her neighbor Joel Aslin tells how he called an ambulance for her when she got heat stroke as temperatures reached 107 F in her small fifth-floor studio apartment during a record-breaking heat wave in June. The unprecedented heat, which reached 116 F in Portland, killed dozens of people in Oregon and hundreds across the region and was a wake-up call for the normally cool region as climate change accelerates. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Karen Colby listens on July 22, 2021 in Portland, Ore., while her neighbor Joel Aslin tells how he called an ambulance for her when she got heat stroke as temperatures reached 107 F in her small fifth-floor studio apartment during a record-breaking heat wave in June. The unprecedented heat, which reached 116 F in Portland, killed dozens of people in Oregon and hundreds across the region and was a wake-up call for the normally cool region as climate change accelerates. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus)

By GILLIAN FLACCUS / The Associated Press 6 min read

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – Karen Colby thought she could make it through an unprecedented Pacific Northwest heat wave with a little help from her neighbor, who dribbled cold water on her head and visited every hour to wrap frozen towels around her neck.

But when temperatures in her tiny fifth-floor studio soared to 107 degrees Fahrenheit (42 Celsius), Colby suddenly stopped responding to questions and couldn’t move from her recliner to her walker. The friend called an ambulance, and Colby, 74, wound up hospitalized for 10 days with heatstroke.

“We had just survived the coronavirus and had been in complete lockdown. We were basically in jail here,” said Joel Aslin, Colby’s longtime friend who lives in the same apartment complex for low-income Portland residents who have a disability or are over 62.

“We did everything right and she survived – and then we had that stupid heat wave and that almost took her life,” Aslin said.

The record-smashing heat that swept through cities from Portland to Vancouver, British Columbia, at the end of June silently killed scores of the region’s most vulnerable who could not leave their homes, afford air conditioning or get a ride to public cooling centers.