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A CBS Chicago photographer remembers the harrowing experience of the deadly 1995 heat wave
This week marks 30 years since a historic and horrific heat wave killed 739 people in the Chicago area — in what remains the deadliest weather event in the city's history.
Officials this week have been sharing what they have learned in the decades since. But CBS News Chicago photojournalist Dino Pillizzi had a more personal reflection, as he covered the tragedy in real time back in July 1995.
"I recalled it right away," Pillizzi said, "not realizing it's been 30 years already."
Amid the sweltering heat, Pillizzi's initial assignments behind the camera for CBS News Chicago — or Channel 2 News, as we would have said back then — came before it was clear just how serious the situation was.
"My assignment was to go to the beach at North Avenue and get, you know, people enjoying the warm weather," Pillizzi said. "It was just people being refreshed at the water — playing kids, families, and everything else. And that same day, I remember just being there a couple of hours, and I got called to go to the morgue."
Pillizzi remembers just what the atmosphere was like.
"It was hot and sticky, and the air was stagnant," he said. "It was hard to breathe."
Pillizzi also remembers the situation in Chicago's public housing projects in such areas as the State Street Corridor on the city's South Side.
"They didn't have resources to keep themselves cool. They didn't have resources," he said. "The high-rises didn't have air conditioning."
More calls of fatalities came in as the intense heat wave went on.
"The morgue couldn't handle the amount of people, and so they brought in refrigerator trucks that were very prominent at the Taste of Chicago weeks before — the refrigerator trucks," Pillizzi said.
The deadly nature of the heat wave was illustrated vividly by scenes of body bags being wheeled toward the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.
"Nowadays, we don't show any of that. We don't show body bags," said Pillizzi, "but back then, it was different."
It was an emotionally challenging experience for many, including Pillizzi himself.
"You kind of feel that, that guilt. Not survivor's guilt, but just guilt that there's so many people suffering, and then I have to go intrude on their suffering to get video of them suffering. It wears on you," Pillizzi said. "That was hard to know that many people died that didn't have to die."
On Tuesday, Chicago city leaders commemorated the victims of the deadly heat wave, and discussed how to ensure it will never happen again. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was in attendance.
"It was a tragedy that revealed just how deadly the intersections of heat, housing insecurity, racial inequity, and social isolation can be," Chicago chief sustainability officer and Department of Environment Commissioner Angela Tovar said of the heat wave.
The special event at the Columbus Park Refectory on the city's West Side also featured a screening of part of a 2018 documentary about the '95 heat wave — "Cooked: Survival by Zip Code," directed and produced by Judith Helfand.
After the screening, a panel discussion examined the lasting legacy of the heat wave, and how Chicago is working proactively to reduce the risks of extreme heat.
