At least 63 people have died in Oregon heatwave – PennLive

At least 63 people throughout Oregon died from health issues related to the hot weather over the past few days, with 45 of those deaths in Multnomah County, authorities say.

Portland broke heat records on three consecutive days, hitting a high temperature of 116 on Monday. Other parts of the state got even hotter, with many recording all-time high temperatures.

Salem hit 117 on Monday, for example, and The Dalles reached 118. Pendleton was 118 degrees on Tuesday. Other Oregon cities, including Redmond and Bend, hit 108 over the weekend.

Capt. Tim Fox, an Oregon State Police spokesperson, said the death toll as of Wednesday was based on reports from each countys medical examiner office, but that number could go up as agencies conduct more investigations and determine causes of death.

The 63 fatalities were reported by six counties. Marion County, home to the state capital, reported nine deaths. Washington County reported five.

The state medical examiner said Clackamas County had two heat-related deaths. Clackamas County, however, has only reported one death. Spokeswoman Kimberly Dinwiddie said an elderly woman died from probable heat-related causes and was found in a manufactured home without air-conditioning.

The state examiner in an email said their offices count reflects what is currently documented in our system and classified as such. As these are active death investigations, the number likely will change over the next few days as more information is being gathered in each case.

Columbia and Umatilla counties reported one fatality apiece.

The death in Columbia County, which happened Tuesday, was of an 83-year-old woman living by herself in the unincorporated part of Scappoose, said county Sheriff Brian Pixley.

MULTNOMAH COUNTY

The Multnomah County Medical Examiner said those who died in Oregons most populous county ranged in age from 44 to 97. Many of them had underlying health conditions.

The Multnomah County victims include 17 women and 27 men. Many of those who died were found alone with no air conditioning or fans, officials said.

The county medical examiner said the preliminary cause of death for the countys victims was hyperthermia, or an abnormally high body temperature caused by a failure of the body to deal with heat coming from the environment.

Julie Sullivan-Springhetti, a county spokesperson, said the number of urgent care and emergency department visits in the county over the weekend surpassed the usual number for an entire summer.

Sullivan-Springhetti said the county on Monday had an all-time high of 491 calls for emergency medical assistance a 63% increase from the normal rate.

She said the county health department is still analyzing data, but early estimates show hospitals were reporting between two and five times more cardiac arrests than usual.

Death information was shared as soon as the information was gathered, Sullivan-Springhetti said.

We were sounding the alarm every day and warning the community that this heat wave was deadly, she said.

County staff and officials worked as quickly as possible to tally numbers, Sullivan-Springhetti said. Very few calls came in to the Multnomah County Medical Examiners office until late Monday night when county investigators took 55 calls in 24 hours.

This is four times the level of calls ever experienced, Sullivan-Springhetti said.

More than half the calls required an in-person investigation.

There were three Multnomah County death investigators and there were so many calls, Sullivan-Springhetti said. The chief medical examiner herself was going out on calls until midnight (on Tuesday) and again (Wednesday) morning.

As the clock struck 10 a.m. Wednesday, Multnomah County Chief Medical Examiner Kimberly Dileo started the arduous process of reading through 100 reports of natural and other deaths to determine which deaths were from excessive heat, Sullivan-Springhetti said. Dileo finished the full investigation by 1:30 p.m.

While most individuals died in their homes, it is not yet known how many individuals were experiencing homelessness at their time of death, Sullivan-Springhetti said. Determining that statistic will take additional investigation.

ACROSS OREGON AND ELSEWHERE

A farmworker, who has not been identified, died in St. Paul on Saturday, when temperatures reached 104 degrees. He was found unresponsive in the field at the end of his shift at Ernst Nursery and Farms, according to the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health division. He had been working on a crew moving irrigation lines, the agency said.

Two people, who also have not been identified, died at a homeless camp in Bend over the weekend, and homeless outreach workers are attributing the deaths to heat-related causes, as reported by The Bulletin. Temperatures reached 104 degrees in Bend on Sunday, the day the deaths were reported.

The figures provided by the state listed no deaths in Deschutes County. It wasnt immediately clear whether the farmworker was included in the Marion County tally.

Meanwhile in Washington, the King County medical examiners office, which covers an area including Seattle, said a total of 13 people had died from heat-related causes. In neighboring Snohomish County, three men ages 51, 75 and 77 died after experiencing heatstroke in their homes, the medical examiners office told the Daily Herald in Everett on Tuesday. Four deaths have also been linked to heat in Kitsap County, west of Seattle.

Elsewhere in Washington, the Spokane Fire Department found two people who had been suffering symptoms of heat-related stress dead in an apartment building Wednesday, TV station KREM reported.

British Columbias chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said her office received reports of at least 486 sudden and unexpected deaths between Friday and Wednesday. Normally, she said about 165 people would die in the Canadian province over a five-day period.

While it is too early to say with certainty how many of these deaths are heat related, it is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather, LaPointe said in a statement.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND EXTREME HEAT

Extreme heat has been on the rise in Oregon over the last 80 years. In Portland and Pendleton, the number of days that reach 90 or higher per year has increased by eight since 1940, according to a statewide climate assessment released earlier this year. Medford has seen that number increase by 21 days, an extra three weeks per year.

No single type of weather event kills more Americans than extreme heat. It kills more than hurricanes and floods combined. Heat has twice the death toll of tornadoes and four times the death toll of extreme cold, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Climate scientists have long said that events like the one that hit the Pacific Northwest this weekend are likely to be more intense, last for longer and happen more frequently as the climate continues to warm because of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Noelle Crombie, Jayati Ramakrishnan, Nicole Hayden, Maxine Bernstein, Savannah Eadens, Kale Williams and Rob Davis of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report. The Associated Press also contributed.

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At least 63 people have died in Oregon heatwave - PennLive