National Heat Awareness Day - May 23, 2014

Friday, May 23 is National Heat Awareness Day; highlighting that heat is the #1 weather related killer in the nation. The focus of the day is not only on heat wave fatalities but also on children dying in hot vehicles and the risks of UV radiation and related skin disease.


The official statistics from the National Weather Service (http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml) indicate an average of 123 deaths per year in the past 10-years, but an estimate from the CDC pegs it at approximately 1,050 per year (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6136a6.htm), an order of magnitude higher. The NWS “Beat the Heat” page is http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/heat/index.shtml


And these statistics do not count the 38 children who die each year as a result of heatstroke after being left in a hot vehicle. Already in 2014 at least 5 children have died of juvenile vehicular heatstroke and the sad thing is that every one of these and the 606 other documented heatstroke deaths since 1998 is preventable. For more information, along with safety tips see http://ggweather.com/heat and http://ggweather.posthaven.com/children-and-cars-a-deadly-warm-weather-combination.


Please take a moment to raise awareness about these hazards…it just may save a life.


Jan Null, CCM
http://ggweather.com