This summer is predicted to be the hottest on record according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with temperatures 30 to 50 percent above normal in much of the United States. Extreme heat harms human health, especially the elderly and outdoor workers, with 2300 deaths nationwide in 2023, a number that is increasing annually.
Cooked: Survival by Zip Code delves into the story of the worst heat disaster in U.S. history. In the summer of 1995, Chicago experienced an unthinkable disaster, when extremely high humidity and a layer of heat-retaining pollution drove the heat index up to more than 126 degrees. Cooked: Survival by Zip Code tells the story of this tragic heatwave, the most traumatic in U.S. history, in which 739 citizens died over the course of just a single week, most of them poor, elderly, and African American.
When peeled away from the shocking headlines the story reveals the less newsworthy but long-term crisis of pernicious poverty, economic, and social isolation, and racism. Cooked is a story about life, death, and the politics of crisis in an American city that asks the question: Was this a one-time tragedy, or an appalling trend?
