Officials say many were elderly, living on the margins and alone
By Tami Abdollah, Carla Hall and Hector Becerra
Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2007 The Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Twenty-nine Southern Californians are believed to have died as a result of the recent heat wave, officials said, with most of the victims fitting within the familiar patterns of heat-wave deaths.
Many, but not all, were elderly. Many lived on the margins, unable or unwilling to spend the money to cool their homes. Some were isolated or fiercely independent, refusing or unable to leave their homes.
Some victims had contact with concerned family members and neighbors during the long, hot holiday weekend. But in the end, they decided to stick it out.
Most died alone.
Los Angeles County officials are investigating 16 deaths as heat-related.
Nearby counties are reporting at least 13 deaths as heat-related, with seven victims in Imperial County, five in San Bernardino County and one in Riverside County. Officials said the total may increase as more autopsies are performed.
State health officials and advocates for the elderly have called heat waves “silent natural disasters” that reach into the homes of the vulnerable and strike them down outside of public view.
“These deaths are an invisible danger,” said Eric Klinenberg, professor of sociology at New York University and author of “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago.” “It’s different than a tornado, literally whipping through town.”
After more than 140 elderly people died in California during last year’s heat wave, officials created phone trees, public education programs, cooling centers and early heat warning systems to reach the most vulnerable.
Mark Horton, director of the California Department of Public Health, said the effort had saved lives but acknowledged that the loss of life in this summer’s heat wave underscores the limits of what officials can do.
“Every one of those deaths was regrettable, and we’d like to think every one of them is preventable,” he said. “But we know individuals will continue to make unfortunate choices, individuals will misjudge their vulnerability to the heat, and accidents will happen.”
Before Dorothy McGlothan, 85, died in her Pasadena apartment, she had told concerned relatives that she needed only a fan to stay cool. Authorities said when they found her, the temperature in her apartment was 115 degrees..
In a Valley Village apartment complex, mourning neighbors wondered why an elderly couple — Menahen Lugassi, 82, and Dolores del Valle, 87 — who were found dead didn’t use their functioning air conditioner.
Medical and psychiatric illnesses can exacerbate an unwillingness to seek a cooler environment, health experts said.
Hannah Balter, 45, who lived with her parents on North Orlando Avenue in Los Angeles’ Fairfax district, died of apparent heat-related causes.
Her brother, Irwin Balter, described the former UCLA graduate student and teaching assistant as “brilliant, very witty.” But he said she suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and had become increasingly reclusive in recent years.
“We were attempting to get some medical care for her,” Balter said. “She was a very private person. I became aware that she was leaving the house less and less.”
When a neighbor learned from Balter’s parents on Tuesday that their daughter had died, she reacted with surprise. “I said, ‘I didn’t know you had a daughter,’ ” said the woman, who would not give her name.
Balter said he had been trying to persuade his sister to move out.
Of the 16 suspected heat death victims in L.A. County, at least 10 were older than 50. Seven of the 10 were found in their homes and two in cars they apparently lived in.
In San Bernardino County, several people are believed to have died in the desert from exposure.
In Imperial County, two illegal immigrants died after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border over the weekend.
But, coroner’s officials agree, heat waves hit the elderly the hardest.
“A lot of these people, the elderly especially. . . they’ve lived here all their lives and they don’t think the heat’s going to bother them,” Imperial County Deputy Coroner Henry Proo said.
“When your electricity costs as much as your food does, and that’s the only amount of money you have coming in, a lot of people around here choose to eat rather than to stay cool,” he said.
According to Southern California Edison spokesman Paul Klein, it costs customers about $230 per month to run a three-ton air conditioner to cool a 1,500-square-foot home during a heat wave (with the unit on 18 hours daily). That breaks down to about 14 cents per kilowatt hour, or $7.70 a day, he said.
Programs to help low-income residents pay for their energy are available, but they don’t cover the full cost of service. Edison’s CARE program, for example, offers a 20% discount only on monthly bills.
On Carmona Avenue in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles, residents said they never worried about Urel Charles Dujon, 77. “We never worried about him, because he looked so good,” said Martina Ruiz, 41, who lives in the back unit of the triplex that Dujon lived in.
“When we left the house on Monday morning, we saw three newspapers in bags on his doorstep,” she said. “I thought he went out — maybe with the brother.”
Several of the heat-wave victims were found when worried family or friends asked local law enforcement to check on them.
But authorities said it was unrealistic to think that they could go door-to-door checking on elderly people.
“It’s not something where we go door to door because we don’t have a list of all the folks in our jurisdiction,” said Sgt. George Berumen, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Century Station. “That would be almost impossible. Considering. . . we have 100,000 people in Lynwood. . . can you imagine trying to figure out how many . . . are elderly and who is not?”
Dr. Brandon Koretz, a geriatrics specialist at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, said Wednesday that in the previous 24 hours, he had admitted two elderly patients who were dehydrated. “They have physiology working against them,” Koretz said. “Additionally, the part of the brain that senses that they’re dehydrated may be less sensitive than other people.”
That might be a factor in Mary Kathryn Graham’s death. She was found in a Gardena board-and-care facility about 9 p.m. Sunday, wearing multiple layers of clothing.
For Koretz and others, the heat wave and its deadly toll are another reminder about the need for neighbors to pay attention to the welfare of the elderly people in their lives.
“You don’t see them, so you don’t think about them,” said Connie Corley, a professor of social work at Cal State Los Angeles.
Times staff writers Maeve Reston and David Pierson contributed to this report.