Heat in Massac, Illinois

Prolonged heat and humidity during the latter half of July took its toll on the unprepared. Four fatalities were blamed on the heat, including two in Wayne County. Near Fairfield, a 78-year-old man died after driving his riding lawn mower to a trucking firm to gather landscape rocks. The man was found near a pile of rocks he had been gathering in 95-degree heat. Near Mount Erie, an 85-year-old man was found dead in his home. The windows were closed, and there was no air conditioning. Elsewhere in southern Illinois, a 53-year-old migrant worker died while laboring in a field near Shawneetown in Gallatin County. The man died at an Evansville hospital after suffering a heat stroke. The fourth death occurred in the Ohio River city of Metropolis, where an 82-year-old woman was found dead in her bathroom. This was the first time in his tenure as Massac County coroner that the cause of death was ruled as heat exhaustion. The woman did not use a fan in the house, and the indoor temperature was measured at 98 degrees. Daily highs were near 100 degrees on the 29th and 30th, with afternoon heat indices from 110 to 115 degrees. At Paducah, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Metropolis, this was the fifth warmest July on record.