Summer, 1995, Chicago: For five days in a row, temperatures soared over 100. More than 700 people died. Almost all the victims lived in poor neighborhoods and couldn’t afford air conditioning. Some lived in homes that had no windows at all. Others were forced to keep their windows nailed shut against crime. This film brings to life events and stories reported in Eric Klinenberg’s 2015 book: Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. It calls on us to transform how we prepare for disaster – and how we define it and understand its impacts.

Because we are unable to meet in person, we are shifting to an online Meaningful Movie event for Cooked: Survival By Zipcode. We are grateful that Kartemquin Films, the film distributor, has agreed to allow us to provide you with free access to the movie (see below for details) and then – on Thursday, March 26th- we will be hosting a videoconference discussion using Zoom.

The film links a heat wave’s devastation to underlying man-made disasters of structural racism. As this current Covid-19 crisis has revealed, disasters hurt those with limited resources especially hard. When Chicago suffered the worst heat disaster in history in 1995, 739 residents – mostly black elders – died in one week.

Whether it is a heat wave, hurricane, or pandemic, disasters show who gets hurt the most and who gets resources to recover and bounce back. This is especially timely as our U.S. Congress debates who gets bailed out and who gets left out with the Corona Virus Relief Bill. Will cruise ship and fossil fuel industries receive funds or will unemployed, uninsured, unhoused people benefit from our tax dollars? We will be discussing Got Green’s petition – Demand Justice And Community Resources. 

Please watch the movie before the evening of Thursday, March 26. In addition, since we will be using zoom, please make sure you have access. If you have not used Zoom, please check it out to learn how to use it on your device.  You can get a free account to connect with family and friends.

Please contact admin@southseattleclimate.org for free access information for the movie.