Avelino Vazquez Navarro, a Mexican farmworker, died last month in Washington state as temperatures soared into triple digits and his RV had no air conditioning.
For more than a decade, the 61-year-old has spent much of the year working near Pasco, Wash., sending money to his wife and daughter in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, Mexico, and spending every year Home for Christmas.
Now, the family is raising money to bring his body home.
“If the RV had air conditioning and it was running, it probably would have helped,” said Franklin County Coroner Curtis McGary, who determined Vazquez-Navarro’s death was related to Hyperthermia is associated, with alcoholism being one cause.
Most heat-related deaths involve homeless people living outdoors. But those who die indoors without adequate cooling are also vulnerable, often over 60 years old, living alone and with limited incomes.
As the summer heats up, many of the victims, like Vazquez-Navarro, are Black, Indigenous or Latino, underscoring inequalities in energy and air conditioning access.
“Air conditioning is not a luxury, it is a necessity,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state energy assistance programs. “This is a public health issue and it’s an affordability issue.”
People who live in mobile homes or aging trailers and RVs are especially likely to lack proper cooling. Nearly a quarter of all indoor heat deaths in Maricopa County, Arizona, last year occurred in such homes, which turned into hot tin cans under the desert sun.
“Mobile homes do heat up because they don’t always have the best insulation and are often made of metal,” said Dana Kennedy, AARP Arizona director. The state has seen numerous heat-related deaths.
Research shows mobile home residents are particularly at risk in hot Phoenix, where weather is expected to reach 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius) this weekend.
“People are more exposed to these elements than other housing,” said Patricia Solis, executive director of Arizona State University’s Center for Disaster Resilience Knowledge Exchange, who works to map the impact of hot weather on mobile home parks to develop state preparedness plans. disaster plan.
To make matters worse, some parks prohibit residents from making modifications that might cool their homes on aesthetic grounds. A new Arizona law requires parks for the first time this summer to allow residents to install cooling devices such as window units, awnings and blinds.
In Maricopa County, Arizona, where Phoenix is located, 156 of the 645 heat-related deaths last year occurred indoors in uncooled environments. Public health officials say that in most cases, a unit is present but is not working, has lost power or is shut down.
One of those victims was Shirley Marie Kouplen, who died from heat-related injuries during a heat wave when an extension cord was unplugged from her mobile home in Phoenix.
Emergency workers recorded the 70-year-old widow’s temperature as 107.1 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 degrees Celsius). Copelan, who suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure, was taken to hospital where she died.
If the dilapidated condition of Coplen’s mobile home is any indication, she’s clearly struggling financially. It still sits on Lot 60, surrounded by a chain-link fence, a locked gate and a dirt driveway overgrown with weeds.
It’s unclear how the power lines were unplugged, whether Coplen had an electric account, or how she obtained power.
“Losing air conditioning is now a life-threatening event,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University who grew up in hot and humid Houston in the 1970s. “You don’t want to lose your air conditioner, but it’s not going to kill you. It’s true now.
Arizona’s regulated utilities are prohibited from shutting off electricity during the summer starting in 2022 after Public Service cut off power to a 72-year-old woman in 2018 over a $51 debt, resulting in the woman’s death. electricity.
Ann Porter, a spokeswoman for Arizona Public Service, which provides power to homes in the park where Coupron lived, said the company could not disclose whether she had an account at the time of her death or in the past “due to privacy concerns.” Porter said the utility will not shut off power between June 1 and Oct. 15.
Closings may occur after these dates if the growing debt is not repaid.
Arizona is one of 19 states implementing blackout protections, leaving about half of the U.S. population without power during the summer, the National Energy Assistance Directors Association said in a new study.
Nearly 20 percent of very low-income households have no air conditioning at all, especially in places like Washington state, where air conditioning was rarely installed before climate-induced heat waves became increasingly intense, frequent and persistent.
In the Pacific Northwest, hundreds of people died during the 2021 heat wave, prompting the city of Portland, Oregon, to launch a program to provide portable refrigeration units to vulnerable low-income people.
Chicago is known for its cold winters, and a heat wave in 1995 killed 739 mostly elderly people in five days. Those without air conditioning or unable to stand up in their units.
Chicago passed a cooling ordinance after three women died in an apartment in a senior citizen building on an unusually warm spring day in 2022. Certain residential buildings must now have at least one air-conditioned common area for cooling when the heat index exceeds 80 degrees (26.6 degrees Celsius) and individual units cannot be cooled.
Nonprofits in historically hot areas like Arizona are also working to better address the inequalities faced by low-income people during hot summers. Wildfire, a Phoenix-based community agency, recently raised funds to purchase more than $2 million worth of air conditioning equipment to help 150 families across the state over three years, said Kelly McGowan, executive director.
Some places have laws protecting renters. Landlords in Phoenix must ensure that air conditioning units cool to 82 degrees (28 degrees Celsius) or below and evaporative coolers reduce temperatures to 86 degrees (30 degrees Celsius).
Two desert cities in California, Palm Springs and Las Vegas, have ordinances requiring landlords to provide air conditioning in rental homes. Dallas, where summer temperatures can reach 110 degrees (43.3 degrees Celsius), has a similar law.
But most renters pay their own electricity bills, leaving them wondering whether they can afford to turn on the air conditioning or how high to turn the thermostat.
A new report estimates that the average cost of keeping a U.S. home cool between June and September will increase 7.9% nationwide this year, from $661 in 2023 to $719 this summer.
Wolf noted that the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides grants to states to help families pay for heating and cooling, is underfunded, 80 percent of which is used to heat homes in the winter.
At the Coupron mobile home park, Spanish-speaking neighbors had little interaction with “Mrs. Shirley,” who used a walker to carry her two puppies outside. Neighbors said the animals were adopted after her death.
Kouplen, who died in 2020, is buried with her husband, JD D. Kouplen, at the Arizona National Memorial Cemetery north of Phoenix.
“Never Forgotten,” their shared sign read.
